


houses we've built

by groundopenwide



Category: Bastille (Band)
Genre: #what acoustic indie duo is this?, Alternate Universe - College/University, Friends to Lovers, M/M, aka Charlie and Dan meet in uni and start a band
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-04-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:42:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23471152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/groundopenwide/pseuds/groundopenwide
Summary: “We’re not a band,” Charlie and Dan say at the same time.
Relationships: Charlie Barnes/Dan Smith
Comments: 25
Kudos: 24





	houses we've built

**Author's Note:**

> WOWIE, KIDS. WE MADE IT!!
> 
> this whole thing honestly started out as a joke when i made [this gifset](https://goodlesson.tumblr.com/post/190135070929/what-acoustic-indie-duo-is-this). i was like, "oh, look at charlie and dan, they're like a little acoustic indie duo," and then...i couldn't stop thinking about it. i read about [dan helping with the background vocals on charlie's track "will & testament,"](https://goodlesson.tumblr.com/post/190357033553/dork-magazine-what-was-it-like-having-dan-join-in) and that was it. i had to write it.
> 
> special shoutout to nadine for sparking the charlie/dan fire in my heart, ej for their liberal usage of the chair emoji, and amy & bella for being the most wonderful cheerleaders in the world. i would not be posting this monstrosity without you guys. ♥
> 
> songs are linked within the fic itself for ~instant listening~, but you can also check out the [spotify playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3vL6Afv3Il109NOlvKRO1e?si=OfBnA4g0Ql2lLHEq8rkoOQ) if you fancy.
> 
> come holler at me on [tumblr!](http://goodlesson.tumblr.com)

Ask anyone around and they’ll all tell you the same thing: Dick’s Pub is a shithole. 

Stained wooden floors. Cobwebs clustered in every corner. Pint glasses turned foggy from too many cycles through the dishwasher. The walls of the loo are covered in Sharpie-scribbled obscenities, and only half of the taps behind the bar work at any given time, making the “wide selection of draught ales” advertised on the chalkboard outside actually quite narrow.

The place is only a block’s walk from campus, though, and they do half-priced pints and trebles on Thursdays, so nobody really cares.

Dan and Ralph have been dedicated patrons of Dick’s nearly every Thursday for the past two-plus years, ever since Freshers’ Week, when Ralph goaded Dan into drinking one too many shots of some sickly-looking concoction called a Blue Kamikaze. That night ended with Dan’s head buried in the cracked porcelain of Dick’s toilet—an incident which, at age eighteen, he vowed to never, ever repeat.

But Thursdays at Dick’s aren’t all about getting sloshed (which is grand, since Dan still has nightmares to this day about his own blue-tinged vomit). They’re also for open mic night. And Ralph—AKA that lad at every party who will bust out his guitar for a wailing rendition of Oasis’s “Wonderwall”— _lives_ for a good open mic night.

“We should sign up!” he drunkenly pronounced that very first Thursday, watching, moon-eyed, as some purple-haired girl holding a ukulele took a seat on the makeshift stage (an oversized piece of plywood laid atop a couple of empty casks) in the corner.

“Why?” Dan asked.

Ralph looked at him like he’d just asked if the Earth was flat.

“Because,” he explained, as if speaking to a toddler, “we’re musicians.”

“You’re a musician,” Dan corrected him. “I’m a...hobbyist.”

“Fuck off. You play music. You’re a musician.”

“Ralph,” Dan complained. They’d had this argument one too many times before.

“Fine. But we’re coming back so I can play next week.”

Sure enough, they did come back the following Thursday. And then just...kept coming every Thursday after that.

“You should be giving me a share of the tips, at this point,” Ralph says now. 

He’s halfway off his stool, leaning over the bar so he can haggle Woody, the stocky barman who’s been putting up with them for the past two years. Dan wasn’t a fan of his at first, mostly because Woody had indirectly (or directly, depending which way you looked at it) contributed to the worst hangover of his life. He got over his grudge a few weeks later, after Woody stopped in the middle of Ralph’s set, turned to Dan, and said, “a bit pretentious, isn’t he?”

Dan, always grateful for an ally in his favorite game, ‘Take the Piss Out of Ralph’, nodded. “Like, Hemingway level pretentious.”

Woody’s proved himself a loyal acquaintance ever since. He joins Dan in his ribbing whenever Ralph needs to be knocked down a peg or two, and even slides them free pints whenever a Thursday turns out to be unnaturally slow. 

He also refuses to put up with shit from either of them. 

“Not my fault you keep wasting your talents on our amateur open mic night,” Woody tells Ralph, unphased, as he wipes out an empty pint glass with the dish rag in his hand. “You want a few quid? Go busk on the corner outside the railway station.”

Ralph heaves a big sigh, but settles back down on his stool. “I reckon at least half the people in here are only regulars now because they love the sound of my voice so much.”

“They love the cheap booze,” Dan says, which earns him a whack upside the head from Ralph. “Ow!”

“You deserved that,” Ralph says.

Dan flips him the bird.

“So, Dan,” Wood interrupts, clearly done with their antics. “Have you given into this one’s—” he hooks a thumb in Ralph’s direction, “—whinging yet and agreed to get up on that stage?” 

“No, he hasn’t, because he’s impossible,” says Ralph.

“I’m not impossible. I’m just shit. No one wants to listen to me,” says Dan.

Also, the thought of singing for anyone other than Ralph and the sparrows on his balcony makes Dan want to crawl under the quilt his Nan knitted for him when he was ten and never emerge again, but he doesn’t voice that thought aloud.

“He’s actually quite good. Which I’ve told him multiple times, but, y’know, he’s also stubborn as shit,” Ralph tells Woody.

“Well, if you ever do get up there, maybe I _will_ give you some of the tips, just to piss Ralph off.” This, Woody directs at Dan, who laughs and offers him a little salute.

“Tempting. Not gonna happen, though.”

Ralph downs the rest of his pint and stands up, depositing his empty glass on the bartop with a loud _clink_. “Right, this has been lovely, but I’m up. Enjoy yet another evening of anonymity, lads.”

“We will,” Dan calls after his retreating back.

And yeah, it’s true, Ralph is certainly a bit pretentious when it comes to his music—but he’s also really, undeniably talented. Has been for as long as Dan can remember. Their decade-long friendship has been underscored by the lulling, folkish sounds of Ralph’s guitar and the low cadence of his voice. Dan can’t think of a time when he wasn’t singing. It feels improper to even try to imagine it.

Dan wishes he could have what Ralph does. The unfaltering posture in the face of a judging crowd, the humble yet confident smile he tucks behind his microphone, the way he makes every stage his own, much like the inside of his bedroom back at their shitty flat. Ralph’s got a presence that makes people listen, that makes them look at him and think, _this guy’s the real deal._ All Dan’s got is a voice that cracks whenever he dares to sing above a murmur and a pit of anxiety that permanently resides where his stomach should be.

Tonight Ralph plays his usual set, a couple of covers along with an original song he’s been fine-tuning for awhile, [ something about having blood on your shirt ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlcSh0bCYoc). Dan’s heard it a hundred times at this point, and he thinks it sounds fine, amazing, even, but Ralph’s always complaining about needing to tweak a note here or a lyric there like the perfectionist he is.

Afterwards, once the weak smattering of applause has died down, Ralph returns to the bar and throws a sweaty arm around Dan’s shoulders. “So, how was I?”

“Awful. Worst thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Thanks, mate. Every artist needs a tough critic.”

Ralph ruffles Dan’s hair, and Dan shoves him off, a dance the two of them have perfected over the years. They tussle with each other until Woody reappears and levels them with a massive eyeroll.

“I can throw you out for poor behavior,” he tells them.

“You can, but you won’t,” Ralph says.

“Don’t test me.”

Ralph offers him a cheeky grin, but finally settles down on the stool beside Dan, stealing his pint glass and taking a sip. “We can head out soon, if you want.”

“Alright,” Dan says.

“You’ll miss the newbie,” Woody says, nodding towards the stage.

There’s a bloke Dan’s never seen before standing at the microphone with a guitar slung over his shoulder. He’s almost like a mini version of Ralph—collared shirt, beard that doesn’t quite want to grow in all the way, guitar pick between his teeth. 

After a moment, he takes the pick out of his mouth and clears his throat into the mic, the sound echoing through the dimly-lit room.

“Hi,” he says. “I’m Charlie.”

And then, undeterred by the lack of reaction from the tipsy crowd, he starts to play.

[ He sings about houses. ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKhn_I4Ixd8) Secrets. Bones stitched back together. The song is good. Really fucking good. His voice is even better, strong when it needs to be and soft when it doesn’t. Dan forgets about his pint, forgets about Ralph, forgets about leaving. It’s like he’s never seen a bloke play the guitar before. Something about it just—sucks him in and swallows him up. He can’t look away.

“Wait, I know him.”

Dan’s so focused he almost misses Ralph’s words. “What?”

The spell breaks. Charlie’s voice fades out and the song ends, and Dan is left sitting on his barstool, feeling a bit like he’s made some sort of discovery that he doesn’t quite know the importance of yet.

“We’re in Music Theory together,” Ralph says.

A few people clap. One offers a drunken whistle. Charlie grins, a bashful thing, and gives the room a little bow.

“I call that one ‘More Stately Mansions,’” he says. “And since you didn’t boo me out of here, maybe I’ll come play it again for you next week.”

With that, he jumps down from the stage and sets about putting his guitar in its case. Dan should stop staring, but it’s like his eyes are stuck, his brain unable to shift its attention to anything else.

“You know him,” he says to Ralph without looking.

“Yeah, mate.” Ralph laughs a little, then stands up on the rung of his stool to make himself taller, planting one hand on the edge of the bartop for balance. He cups his other hand around his mouth and yells, “Oi, Charlie!”

Across the room, Charlie swivels his head to look. When he spots Ralph, it takes a second for the recognition to click, but then his face lights up and he waves. He finishes packing up his guitar and heads toward them, slipping through the steadily growing crowd until he’s reached their spot at the bar.

“Ralph, right? From Theory? Saw you play earlier, you sounded wicked,” Charlie greets. 

He sounds out of breath, probably from singing. When he smiles, he does so with all of his teeth, which are just a little bit wonky and crooked. It’s cute. He’s cute. Dan needs another drink.

“Yeah, thanks,” says Ralph. “You were proper fucking good, too. How come you’ve not been to open mic sooner?”

Charlie shrugs. “I mean, this place is kind of shit, isn’t it?”

“Well, sure, but Woody here just so happens to be the greatest barman of all time.”

Across the counter, Woody flips Ralph the bird, then continues on his way to help a customer at the other end of the bar.

“You’re a regular, then?” Charlie laughs. He tilts his head and looks past Ralph’s shoulder to where Dan is sitting as if just now noticing him. “Both of you are? Christ, sorry, I swear I don’t usually act like a prick and forget to introduce myself. I’m Charlie.”

Ralph spins around on his stool to clap Dan on the shoulder. “This is my mate Dan.”

“Hey,” Dan says. “That was—you were really good.”

Very eloquent, Dan.

But Charlie just smiles again, his eyes getting all crinkly at the corners. “Thanks, mate. Do you play, too?”

“Not really,” Dan says, at the same time Ralph says, “yeah.”

Dan shoots Ralph a dirty look. “Quit it.”

Ralph holds up his hands in surrender. Charlie looks between the two of them, his eyebrows climbing up towards his hairline.

“Sorry. Sensitive topic?”

“It’s fine,” Dan says, before Ralph can dig them both into a deeper hole. “I play a bit of piano, but it’s...nothing serious. I’m not very good.”

“Ah,” Charlie says. 

He’s clearly curious to know more, but doesn’t say anything else. Dan looks away, flustered, and gulps down the rest of his pint in a hurry.

“Ready to go?” he asks Ralph once he’s done.

“Right now? Shit, alright.” Ralph shrugs at Charlie, a _what-can-you-do_ that makes Dan’s face go all warm. “See you in lecture?”

“Yeah, definitely.” Charlie rocks forward onto his toes and gives Dan a wave over Ralph’s shoulder. “Good meeting you, mate.”

“Yeah,” Dan says back, because he’s a loser who can’t string a real sentence together. “Bye.”

Outside, the air is chilly, a light breeze nipping through the thin cotton of Dan’s jumper as they walk back to their flat. He tucks his hands into his armpits and stares enviously at Ralph, who makes a big show of turning up the collar of his stupid peacoat when he catches him looking.

“You’re an idiot,” Ralph says. 

Dan shivers and hunches further into his jumper. “Sorry.” 

“S’alright. Come here.”

Ralph holds out an arm, and Dan goes stumbling into his side, the fabric of Ralph’s coat scratching against his cheek. “Thanks.”

“If you’d just wear a fucking coat,” Ralph mutters without heat. He slows down his steps to match Dan’s, until they’re in sync like always, one foot in front of the other. “I’m starving. Wanna get chips?”

****

Charlie has ended up in a lot of dodgy places thanks to Will. 

There was that party flat back when they were first years, the one Will claimed he knew the owners of, but that actually turned out to be run by a bunch of footie players (and Will _definitely_ didn’t know any footie players). Even better, Will just _had_ to go and snog one of the players’s girlfriends in a dark corner. That night ended with Will and Charlie getting chased out of the flat and finding themselves in a Tesco toilet down the road so Will could shove a wad of toilet tissue against his bruised, bleeding nose.

Then there was the club downtown, which Will said he’d read about on a flier advertising a student night. Upon arrival, Charlie quickly realized there were no students in sight, just a lot of middle-aged men dressed in leather jackets. The whole place stunk of cigarette smoke, and the band onstage was basically just screeching into the mic. Yeah, definitely not a student night—but very much Will’s scene, which Charlie probably should have deduced from the exorbitant amount of motorbikes parked outside.

They’re an unlikely pair, the two of them. Charlie’s all button-down shirts and calloused fingers from playing his guitar day in and day out; Will is dark clothes and half-smiles and grunts in the place of words. 

When Charlie walked into their shared room on the first day of Freshers’ Week and was met by a scowl from a tall, axe-murdery looking bloke sitting on one of the beds, he nearly turned right back around and high-tailed it to the accommodation office. His mum was standing behind him in the doorway blocking his escape, though, so he was forced to slink into the room and face his new roommate.

“Hi. Are you...Will?”

“Yeah. You’re Charlie?”

Charlie nodded. Will sized him up (which didn’t take long—there wasn’t much of Charlie to size up, height-wise), then turned to look at his mum.

“You must be Charlie’s mum,” Will said, and then the craziest thing happened.

He smiled.

“Yes, that’s me! Pleasure to meet you,” Charlie’s mum said, flitting past Charlie’s shoulder to greet Will with a standard, mum-like hug. “Your parents couldn’t stay?”

“They had to catch the train back to London,” Will said, still smiling.

Charlie looked on in wonder. Was his new roommate...secretly a big softie?

Will turned back to him as if overhearing his thoughts. He didn’t say a word, but the look in his eyes told Charlie _I will knock your teeth out if you say anything about this._

Charlie just grinned. “Mum, I think Will and I will get on swimmingly, don’t you?”

“Well, I do hope so,” said his mum, and Will scowled from behind her back.

So, yeah, Thursday night at Dick’s is just another on the long list of their misadventures. Charlie wants so badly to skip out, but they’re hosting an open mic, and Will knows exactly how much Charlie likes to use his music to beg for scraps of attention from drunken crowds. It’s fucking manipulative, is what it is, Will inviting him out like this, but, well—Charlie can’t say no.

And good thing he doesn’t, because it turns out Ralph from Theory is here, and his friend—Dan, his name is Dan—is well fit. His hair is the size of the Amazon rainforest, and his glasses are the nerdiest thing Charlie’s ever seen, but he’s also got a little smattering of freckles on his nose and he says Charlie’s set was good like he really means it, then gets all shy and embarrassed when Ralph mentions his music, and Charlie just wants to pinch his cheeks, or kiss him, or something equally reckless.

The next week, Charlie knocks on Will’s bedroom door and pokes his head in without waiting for an answer. 

“Are you coming to open mic?”

Will is sprawled on his stomach across his bed playing Mario Kart. He punches furiously at the buttons on his controller and, without looking away from his game, says, “You’re going back to Dick’s?”

“Yeah. It was...cool.”

“It’s a shithole.”

“Half-priced trebles,” Charlie sing-songs.

Will sighs and pauses his game. He levels Charlie with a bored look. “I’m not some dainty bird in sixth form, you can’t bribe me with alcohol.”

“You bribe me with alcohol all the time.”

“Yeah, and it works on you ‘cos you’re easy,” Will says, then turns back to the telly. “Fine. Come grab me at eight.”

“I am not _easy,_ ” Charlie grumbles as he leaves the room.

When they get to Dick’s later that night, the place is so jam-packed that Charlie can barely see the floor, much less spot a face in the crowd. Which is fine, because he totally came here to play his guitar and not to see if Dan’s eyes are as blue as he remembers. 

He and Will squeeze up to the bar to order their drinks, and Charlie chugs his first pint fast enough that it makes his acid reflux start to act up. He lets out a hiccup while Will watches on, perfectly composed as always.

“What’s your deal?”

“Nothing. I don’t have a deal,” Charlie says.

“Alright,” Will says, thoroughly unconvinced, and takes a sip from his own glass. He pulls a face. “God, that is awful.”

Charlie hiccups again. “I’m going to put my name on the list,” he says.

Leaving his guitar with Will, Charlie abandons the safety of the bar and shoulders his way into the crowd. There’s a polite round of applause as whoever’s onstage finishes up their bit (not that Charlie can even see who it is, because there are a million people in here and he’s short, alright, he’ll admit it). He finally makes it to the front of the room, where the sign-up sheet is posted on the wall off to one side of the stage, just as a new voice filters through the shitty speakers.

“Hopefully most of you recognize me, seeing as I’m here every fucking week, but if you don’t—my name’s Ralph, and I play music.”

Charlie freezes in front of the sign-up sheet and swivels around to look at the stage. It’s Ralph from Theory, tall and mighty behind the mic with his guitar in hand. There’s an empty keyboard and stool set up next to him, which is new. Charlie turns to scan the crowd, hoping against hope that he might spot Dan’s kilometer-high hair over the sea of heads.

“This Thursday is more special than most,” Ralph continues. “You see, today’s my birthday.”

A few people cheer. Someone whistles. 

“And since it’s my birthday, I was able to prepare something extra special for you all. I’ve got this mate who’s really fucking talented, and he’s agreed to play with me tonight.”

Another round of cheers. 

“He’s a bit shy, though, so be kind, will you? Alright, everyone—here’s Dan.”

The floor drops out from beneath Charlie’s feet. Dan looks nervous, jumper sleeves pulled down over his hands. The lame spotlight highlights the red in his cheeks. Is he drunk? Skittish? Probably both. When he takes a seat at the keyboard, Charlie can see his legs vibrating violently beneath it.

“Can’t fucking believe I’m doing this,” Dan mumbles, just loud enough that the mic picks up the words. The crowd laughs. “Fuck. Alright. Hi, I’m—well, you already know this, but I’m Dan.”

More laughter. Dan runs a hand through his hair, which makes it stand even further upright. Charlie’s never wanted to touch something so badly in his entire life.

“I’m really fucking bad at this—this being, well, music, and talking, and just generally, um, existing—but it’s Ralph’s birthday, and he got me quite drunk before this, so here I am. Uh, I’m sorry in advance. Like, really sorry. Feel free to throw rotten fruit at me if you think I’m rubbish.”

“He’s not rubbish,” Ralph says into his mic.

“He’s my best friend, he has to say that,” Dan tells the audience. “Okay, I’ll shut up now. This is—a song. That I wrote. Happy fucking birthday, Ralph, you owe me one.”

And sure, yeah, Charlie had been crossing his fingers—so hard they started to cramp, in fact—that Dan would be here tonight, but he was not at all prepared for this.

Dan has the voice of a fucking angel.

Ralph’s playing this soft, folky melody on his guitar, and Dan’s singing about how [ he won’t show his face here again ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TL-zEF1r3rc) while he pokes at the keyboard. Charlie’s about to keel over and die, it’s that good. And Dan’s so bashful about it all, his head bent low and shoulders hunched like he’s trying to hide from the hundred pairs of eyes looking at him—like he honestly has no idea just how talented he is, when he could be playing—god, the fucking O2 or something—instead of this grimey pub that smells like a mixture of piss and fry oil.

When it’s over, Charlie forgets to clap. He forgets to do anything. He’s in shock. Feet planted, breathing nonexistent, mouth pursed like a puffer fish.

Into the mic, Ralph says, “that was good, right? Dan’s really good!”

The room yells in agreement. Dan’s face has turned white as a sheet, and he’s sweating bullets, his hair greasy in the low light. He waves—well, more like flaps—his hand in acknowledgement, then almost knocks the keyboard over in his haste to get up.

“Er, thank you. I’m going to have a drink now. Or twenty. Bye,” he tells the crowd, before fleeing the stage like someone’s lit a fire beneath him and he can’t get away fast enough.

Charlie doesn’t bother writing his name on the sign-up sheet. He can barely get his limbs working long enough to get back to Will over at the bar, much less carry him up onstage and play his guitar. He drifts through the crowd in a daze, Dan’s song playing on a loop inside his brain. Charlie wants to hear him play it again, and again, and again. He wants to know if Dan’s written other songs. He wants to hear them all, and know them all, and know Dan, too. 

Will looks surprised to see him. “Thought you’d gotten trampled to death,” he says.

“Did you see that?” Charlie asks in response.

“See what? The hipster lumberjack and his geeky mate?”

“Ralph. And Dan.” 

“Right. Ralph. And Dan. What about them?”

Charlie can’t believe he’s the only one who feels like someone’s taken a potato masher to the inside of his brain—like the fabric of his reality has been irreparably altered. “What did you think?”

“Is this a trick question?”

“No,” Charlie says. “Yes. Maybe. Just—what did you think?”

“They were alright,” Will shrugs. “Cool song. The one with the big hair was a bit awkward.”

“Dan,” Charlie corrects, the name feeling sacred inside his mouth. 

Will squints at him. A moment later, he groans.

“Oh. Oh,christ. You’ve got a thing for the one with the big hair. I knew we weren’t just coming here so you could play some of your morbid fucking death pop. I _knew_ it.”

 _Morbid death pop._ That’s clever. Charlie makes a mental note of it for later. 

“I’ve not got anything,” he protests. “I just...like his voice.”

Understatement of the century. Which Will knows, because Charlie is the worst liar to ever walk the face of this planet. 

(Last year, he tried to surprise Will for his birthday with this cool patch for his denim jacket. It was all flowers and thorns, very biker-y, with the name of Will’s favorite obscure rock band in the middle. The secret didn’t even survive five minutes, though, because the moment Charlie got the notification that the package had arrived in the post, he jumped off his bed and, in his grand excitement at having procured the Greatest Gift Of All Time, announced, “the patch I got for you is here!”) 

Will shakes his head like he’s caught Charlie drawing on the wall with crayons. “Are you even playing tonight?”

Charlie clears his throat and tries to smile. 

Will flips him the bird.

“Great. Awesome,” Will says. He picks up Charlie’s guitar case and hoists the strap over his shoulder. “You owe me, like, ten rounds of Mario Kart.”

Charlie casts one last longing look at the stage, but Dan and Ralph are long gone. The only one up there now is a bloke in a fedora cap performing some sort of Shakespeare soliloquy. Fitting, since Charlie feels a bit like a tortured, star-crossed lover as he heaves a sigh and follows Will out the door of the pub.

****

Charlie met Kyle a few months back at a “Careers in Music” mixer. It was a shit mixer. The evening was just an excuse to do a lot of standing around and schmoozing with professors and local businessmen who were all trying to convince you that oh, absolutely, your background in music could serve you well in a career in marketing! There was free wine service, though, and Charlie had heard through the grapevine that the caterer was serving mini crab cakes, so he put on his best unironed shirt and went.

He was standing by the refreshments, loading a flimsy paper plate full of crab cakes, when a bloke who was absolutely far too tall for his own good appeared beside him. 

“Have you tried the little quiches?” he asked. “They’re ace.”

At this point, Charlie was three glasses of Merlot deep. “You’re quite tall,” he said.

“Thank you,” the stranger said. “You’re quite short.”

Charlie straightened his shoulders. “Thank you.”

The stranger’s name was Kyle. He scored them a full bottle of wine by complimenting the bartender on her dermal piercings, and together they fled outside and drank all of it right there in the wet grass of the quad, stains on their trousers be damned. To this day, Charlie’s khakis still have just the slightest tinge of green to them.

Kyle has a mate called Nick, and the two of them have this funky electronic duo thing going on where they remix songs and post them on SoundCloud. They call themselves Tyde. They’re not very good. Kyle is one of those people who isn’t bothered by much of anything, though, so when Charlie told him this the first time, Kyle just shrugged and said, “I know.”

On Saturday afternoon, Kyle texts him: _party tonight! there will be Alcohol!_

It’s been a long week. Because, you see, Charlie’s got a bit of a problem: he hasn’t been able to stop thinking about Dan. Which, alright, he’s got a crush. That’s nothing new. Crushes are a totally normal thing to have (for him, anyway). It’s nothing to write home about.

What _is_ something new is that Dan is extremely, incredibly talented, and Charlie can’t get that song about streets out of his head. He’s always considered himself a solo act, a one man show, has never really had a desire to play with someone else, but Dan—Charlie wants, more than he’s ever wanted anything in his entire life—more than he wanted his first guitar, even, which his eight-year-old self worked upwards of a year for by washing the car and mowing the lawn and begging, begging, _begging_ his mum and dad to pretty please enroll him in lessons—to play with Dan. 

In Music Theory on Tuesday, Charlie nearly had a heart attack when Ralph passed by his chair, clapped him on the shoulder, and asked, “alright, mate?”

How did you make eye contact with someone when the only thought in your head was, _oh, hey, don’t mind me, I’m just sort of obsessed with your best mate?_

Charlie smiled, weak and wobbly. Ralph gave him a confused look.

“You look...off,” he said. “You aren’t about to vomit on me, are you?”

“No,” Charlie said finally. “At least, I don’t think so.”

“Cool,” Ralph said, and continued on toward his seat.

To top it all off, Charlie didn’t even make it to open mic on Thursday, because he’d massively procrastinated on a paper for History of Rock and Roll and had to stay up all night finishing it. Three cans of Red Bull and twelve hours later, the sun was rising and staining the sky cotton-candy pink. Charlie attached his paper to an e-mail, clicked send, and fell into bed with his socks still on (he fucking hated sleeping in socks), where he stayed, unconscious, until Will barged into his room around dinnertime and demanded, “did you use the rest of the milk again?”

Long story short, Charlie would love some alcohol right about now. He drafts up a reply to Kyle’s text and just types _**!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!**_

Will’s decided to be a homebody tonight (“I’m still mad about the milk”), so Charlie heads over to Kyle and Nick’s by himself around nine. When he gets there, he finds Kyle in the kitchen throwing back two jello shots at the same time.

“Charlooooo!” Kyle exclaims once he’s done. His tongue is bright red from the jello. “Come give me a hug.”

“Jesus,” Charlie says, right before he gets squashed against Kyle’s chest like a bug on a windshield. 

“Have a jello shot.”

“I will once you let go of me.”

Kyle lets go. Charlie inhales a much needed lungful of air and says, “alright, jello shots.”

The trouble with jello shots is they taste like, well, jello, so Charlie eats about six of them before he realizes that probably isn’t the best way to start out the night. But by then it’s too late, and he’s already extra smiley and nursing his second beer after having taken a couple of pulls from Nick’s whiskey bottle, so like, whatever. He came here to drink alcohol. Mission successful.

The flat is fairly crowded. A few faces Charlie knows from the campus music scene, but most of them he doesn’t. Nick has his phone connected to the bluetooth speaker in the corner and it’s blasting [ a Jason Derulo song ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlAZzz4Tvsc). Charlie can’t stand Jason Derulo. 

“I can’t stand Jason Derulo,” he says out loud.

“Fuck you, we’re at a party, I have to play Jason Derulo,” Nick says back, but Charlie isn’t listening anymore.

“Shit,” he says.

“What?” Kyle asks as he bops along to the music.

“That’s Dan.”

“Who’s Dan?” Nick asks.

“Ralph’s mate Dan.”

“Who’s Ralph?” Kyle asks.

“Oh, Ralph,” Nick says. “With the beard.”

“I’ve got a beard,” Kyle says.

Dan is here. At this party. He’s sitting on the sofa across the room, alone and looking like he’d rather be anywhere else. There’s a picture of a wolf on his shirt and he’s tapping his fingers against his leg in time to the song. Charlie hasn’t showered in 48 hours and his breath smells like whiskey. He is absolutely not prepared for this.

“Dan plays music,” Charlie blurts. “His voice is, like, the best.”

“Okay,” Nick says.

“He wrote this song and played it at Dick’s last week, and it was...” Charlie can’t think of a word to describe it. “It was like. I don’t even know. He’s just amazing.”

Kyle plants both of his hands on Charlie’s shoulders and looks him straight in the eye. “Charlie. Honest question. Are you in love?”

“He’s not in love, he’s drunk,” Nick says, and Kyle pouts. “Are you gonna talk to him?”

Charlie looks over at Dan again. There’s a girl sitting next to him on the couch now, and she’s flapping her hands around like she’s in the middle of the most important story she’s ever told in her life. Dan’s eyes are big and terrified.

“Should I?” Charlie asks. “I should talk to him. Right?”

“Yes!” Kyle says.

“I literally could not care less what you do,” Nick tells him.

Charlie hands Kyle his beer bottle and takes a deep breath. “Alright, I’m going.”

“Yes!” Kyle says again.

The walk towards the sofa takes about a hundred years, mostly because Charlie has to focus very hard on staying upright the whole way there. The girl with the hands-on-steroids is still sitting next to Dan. Now that Charlie is close enough, he can hear her talking about something to do with vodka shots and Mallorca and Calvin Harris. Dan looks a bit like he wants to off himself. He’s smashed himself into the corner of the sofa as if he’s trying to disappear right into the armrest. 

Charlie clears his throat and says, “hey.”

The girl stops talking. When Dan looks up and sees him, his shoulders unhunch slightly. “Hey,” he says back, a half-question in his eyes.

“You’re Ralph’s friend,” Charlie says by way of introduction, as if he hasn’t memorized Dan’s name and the sound of his voice and the words to his stupid, wonderful song.

“Dan. Yeah. You’re…”

“Charlie.”

“From Dick’s,” Dan realizes. The girl beside him offers a most dramatic huff, then gets up and walks away. Dan uncurls from his fetal position. “Oh, thank god.”

“Not a friend of yours?”

“Never seen her before in my life.” Dan blinks, and christ, his eyes are so blue. “Never seen most of these people before, to be honest.”

“You’ve seen me,” Charlie says, before he can stop himself.

Dan laughs a little. “Yeah, I reckon I have.”

“D’you know Kyle and Nick?”

“Not really. Ralph knows Nick, I think? But he’s busy tonight.” Dan scratches the back of his neck. “My other mate dragged me here. Sophie.”

Charlie nods like he has any clue who Dan is referring to. “Sophie. Cool. And she’s…?”

“Throwing up in the toilet, probably,” Dan says. He sounds serious, yet somehow incredibly fond at the same time. It startles a laugh out of Charlie.

“Not going to lie, that’ll probably be me in the morning. Kyle gave me jello shots.”

“Say no to peer pressure,” Dan says sagely, which makes Charlie laugh again. Dan’s funny. He’s a funny guy. And he’s got this small, bashful smile on his face, like he’s both pleased and disbelieving that he made Charlie laugh. His fingers keep tapping against his knee, pitpatpitpat. Charlie wants to reach out and still them just so he can see if Dan’s hand is as calloused as his own. He takes a seat on the open half of the sofa instead.

“I have a bone to pick with you,” he says abruptly.

Dan’s eyes go a bit wide. He’s still smiling, though, and he says, “alright.”

Charlie leans forward. “You said you weren’t any good at playing music.”

“I’m not.”

“Mate, I saw you last week. On Ralph’s birthday.” Charlie’s about to start waxing poetic again, but he catches himself just in time. “You’re full of shit.”

Dan’s cheeks go a little red. “You were there?”

“For like, a minute.” The only minute that mattered. “You really wrote that song?”

“Yeah, but it’s not—I just mess around sometimes, it’s nothing.”

“It was the best thing I’ve ever heard,” Charlie says, dead serious.

Dan’s smile falters. His cheeks grow even redder. “Oh,” he says. “Um.”

Charlie wants to kick himself.

“I’m sorry. That was a weird thing to say. Are you freaked out? I didn’t mean to freak you out,” he babbles. “I just—I think you’re good. Crazy good.”

“Oh,” Dan says again. “That wasn’t weird to say. It’s just—you—”

“Me?”

“You’re, like, a real musician,” Dan says. “That song, the one about the houses, it was like—special, you know? New. Different.”

The compliment sends tingles all the way down to Charlie’s toes. “So was yours, though.”

Dan shrugs, looking anywhere but at Charlie’s face. “I’m not, like—I’m not a performer. You and Ralph, you just—you get up there and it feels right, you know? I sit down behind a piano, and everyone in the room is like—‘something’s off. What’s going on? Who’s he?’”

Once, when Charlie was a kid, he found an injured bird in the yard and nursed it back to life just like they did in the movies—put it in a shoebox, fed it little bits of bread, the whole shebang. That’s sort of what this feels like. Dan’s a bird with a clipped wing, and Charlie doesn’t know how it happened, but he’s ready to dedicate his everything into getting Dan back on his feet nonetheless, because Dan’s got something unparalleled, something Charlie would cry real tears over if it went to waste.

And now he’s drunkenly equating Dan to a bird. Jesus. But like—the comparison stands, alright.

“Sorry,” Dan shakes his head. “You don’t wanna hear this. We’re at a party.”

“No, I do,” Charlie tells him. “I do.”

Dan finally looks at him, the wariness fleeing from his face and the corner of his mouth ticking upwards into a hesitant smile. Charlie grins back, relieved that the too-heavy moment has passed.

“Ralph would never put up with my shit like this,” Dan says.

“Good thing I’m not Ralph,” Charlie says. “How’d you guys meet?”

Dan tells Charlie about his family moving right before the start of secondary school, how nobody wanted to talk to the short, stick-thin bloke in glasses (“it was like every shitty coming-of-age film you’ve ever seen”) except for Ralph, who sat down beside him at lunch and said, “I’ve got smarties, do you want some?”

He tells Charlie about the first time Ralph ever showed him his guitar, about the first time they ever played music together (age fourteen, Dan had just begun learning piano and Ralph insisted they learn a Kings of Leon song), about coming to uni and Ralph turning into a local superstar (sort of) while Dan cheered him on from the sidelines and read Chaucer and Shakespeare and Tolkien. Charlie hangs off every word. He finds out Dan’s studying English Lit, that he wants to be a teacher, that he loves Twin Peaks and Kanye, even though Kanye’s a dick. He gestures a lot with his hands when he speaks and says self-deprecating things like “sorry, I’m rambling” or “you probably didn’t need to know that” and Charlie just wants to grab him and say _I need to know everything, I want to know everything._

“Can we play together sometime?” Charlie asks instead.

Dan takes a minute to answer, rubbing his hands against his thighs like he’s trying to get the sweat off them. “I don’t—”

“It’d be casual. No pressure. A couple of mates with instruments.”

“I guess that’s…yeah. Okay. Yeah.”

“Wait. Really?”

“Yeah?” Dan says.

“Wow. Okay. Wicked,” Charlie breathes. “Can I—”

 _—have your number,_ he means to ask, because he’s feeling unnaturally brave tonight thanks to the jello/vodka/whiskey/beer concoction in his stomach, and Dan wants them to play together, is this real life?—but he’s cut off when someone sits—no, falls—straight onto the sofa, half of their limbs catching Charlie right in the gut and the other half landing on top of Dan, who lets out a little _oof!_

“Daaaaaaan,” says the mystery person. She rolls over to face them and knees Charlie in the groin in the process. He winces. The girl’s mascara is smudged, and there’s some sort of mysterious orange dust on her chin like she stuck her face in a bowl of Wotsits. “Where’ve you been?”

“Soph,” Dan chides. He glances Charlie’s way, face red as a stoplight and eyes practically screaming in apology. “I’ve been here. Where have you been?”

“I was with Aiden, but then I got hungry, so I went to the kitchen, and they’ve got jello shots in there, did you know that?”

“I heard,” Dan says wryly.

“So I’m in the kitchen taking jello shots with this tall bloke—oh my god, Dan, he was _so tall—_ and then Aiden found me, so I gave him some jello shots, too, and now I’m here.”

“You’re here,” Dan agrees.

The mystery girl—Dan’s mate Sophie, apparently—sits up a bit, just enough to poke Charlie in the shoulder. Her eyes turn to two thin slits as she assesses him. “I don’t know you. Does Dan know you?”

“I’m Charlie.”

“And I do know him,” Dan reassures her.

Sophie doesn’t look convinced, but she sits back anyway, tucking her forehead against Dan’s stomach and closing her eyes. “I’m tired,” she says.

“You can’t sleep yet, Soph,” Dan says. He shakes her shoulder a bit, and she squints her eyes open again, grumbling under her breath. Dan sighs and looks at Charlie. “I should get her home. Sorry.”

“S’alright,” Charlie says, and he thinks he does a pretty fine job of masking his disappointment. 

Dan maneuvers both himself and Sophie up off the sofa with the assured movements of someone who’s done this many times before. Charlie watches them, itching to get up as well, but he tucks his hands under his legs in an effort to get himself to stay still.

“I’ll see you later?” Dan asks, unphased by Sophie’s hands, which are now petting his hair. 

Charlie absolutely is not thinking about how much he wishes he could touch Dan’s hair like that, all friendly (okay, maybe a bit more than friendly) and casual and no-big-deal. “Yeah. Yes. Definitely.”

Dan smiles at him. Charlie smiles back. 

And he’s so focused on remembering that look on Dan’s face, all shy and happy with his nose wrinkled up and sparks in his eyes, that he doesn’t realize he never actually got Dan’s number until later, much later, as he’s wobbling his way home on unsteady feet after leaving Nick to clean up a mountain of empty cans and bottles while Kyle snored on the sofa. Charlie stops dead in the middle of the sidewalk and thinks about braining himself on the lamppost to his left.

 **_I FFCUKED UP,_ **he texts Nick instead.

 _What’s new,_ Nick sends back.

****

Ralph, predictably, wants to know everything.

“Sophie says she found you on the sofa with some bloke.”

Dan rolls over in bed and squints at the doorway where Ralph is standing, framed by the light from the hallway as he spoons Coco Pops into his mouth.

“That makes it sound so...scandalous,” says Dan, voice muffled by his pillow.

“Was it scandalous?” 

“No.”

Ralph walks the rest of the way into the room and plops down on Dan’s bed. He holds out his bowl in offering. Dan drags himself up to a sitting position and takes it, settling his back against the headboard.

“So, who was the bloke?” Ralph asks.

Dan takes a bite of cereal. “Charlie.”

“I knew it,” says Ralph. “Jesus, I knew it.”

“You did not.”

“He was so strange in Theory last week,” Ralph continues as if Dan hasn’t spoken. “Barely said a word to me. Of course it’s because he fancies you.”

“He does not.” Dan’s whole face grows warm. “We just talked about music. And stuff.”

“‘And stuff,’” Ralph parrots. 

Dan crunches another bite of Coco Pops between his teeth. He got home last night (after spending a positively ludicrous amount of time wrangling Sophie back to her own flat and into bed) and crawled beneath his sheets thinking about how cute and squinty Charlie’s eyes got when he smiled, and the way he listened to Dan with his whole body, and how he said _I do_ like their conversation was the singular, most pivotal moment of his entire life. 

_A couple of mates with instruments,_ those were Charlie’s words, and as terrifying as the concept of playing with anyone else besides Ralph might be, Charlie at least seems like the best ‘anyone else’ there is.

“He wants to play together sometime,” Dan says.

Ralph raises an eyebrow. “Alright. And how do you feel about that?”

“I don’t know. I said yes, but I just—don’t know. He seemed pretty drunk, so maybe he didn’t mean it?”

Ralph reaches out and takes the cereal bowl from Dan’s hands, setting it on the nightstand beside him. He then grabs Dan’s phone off the charger and dangles it in the air in front of him like bait on a fishing rod. “Only one way to find out.”

“I didn’t get his number.”

“Well, lucky for you, I am not a walking disaster like you, so I _do_ have his number.” Ralph drops Dan’s phone onto the bedspread and reaches into his pocket for his own. “I’m sending you his contact info. Use it wisely.”

“Wait, I—”

But Ralph’s already on the move. He throws Dan a thumbs up, then waltzes out of the room without closing the door behind him, his bowl abandoned on Dan’s nightstand without a second thought.

Dan sighs and picks up his phone, eyeing it with disdain. He isn’t hungover, yet still feels a bit like he might puke as he saves Charlie’s number to his contacts and types out a new message: 

_Hey, it’s Dan. From the party. Ralph gave me your number, I hope that’s cool._

He hits send before he can overthink it. Seconds later, his phone vibrates. Then vibrates again.

**_hey dan!!! that is absolutely cool. i meant to ask for yours last night anyway_ **

**_how’s your friend?_ **

Dan’s so shocked by the rapid reply that it takes him a solid minute to figure out who Charlie’s talking about.

_Sophie? Alive, I’m pretty sure._

Definitely alive, since she’s already had time to gossip with Ralph, apparently.

**_that’s good :)_ **

**_i too am pretty sure i’m alive, but it also sort of hurts to blink, so i’ll get back to you on that one_ **

Dan laughs.

_Jello shots?_

**_JELLO SHOTS_ **

The words are followed by a string of skull-and-crossbones emojis. 

**_my flatmate has zero sympathy. he’s blasting stormzy so loud my bed is shaking_ **

_He has good taste._

**_i agree. he’s just also a prick_ **

Dan laughs again and takes a deep breath, then writes what he’s been meaning to ask this whole time:

_Did you mean what you said last night? About us playing together?_

Charlie’s typing bubble pops up immediately. 

**_yes!!!!!_ **

**_did you mean it when you agreed?_ **

_I’ve never played with anyone except Ralph. I might suck._

Charlie’s response is [ a GIF of Stanley from The Office ](https://media3.giphy.com/media/dEdmW17JnZhiU/giphy.gif?cid=ecf05e4789fdadf4e20dc969a2ec9e34ea68583e4c8a4d5b&rid=giphy.gif) rolling his eyes.

**_stop saying that like it’s the worst thing in the world. sucking is allowed!_ **

**_...that sounded better in my head_ **

**_i’ve got lecture till 4 tomorrow but we could meet up after that?_ **

Dan doesn’t answer right away, because of course the conversation would end up here. And _of course_ Dan knew that going into it, but he didn’t think Charlie would suggest they meet up so...soon. Dan typically needs at least a week’s notice before he’s even remotely emotionally equipped to hang out one-on-one with anyone besides Ralph.

But this is Charlie, and they’ve already hung out one-on-one. Sort of. In a room full of strangers, while someone puked in the potted plant next to where they were sitting on the sofa, but still. That counts, doesn’t it?

Dan’s heart just about departs from his body as he composes his next message:

_I’m done at 3. You can come over here once you’re off?_

Charlie sends a guitar and a salsa dancing emoji.

**_send me your address and i’ll be there (and not a square)_ **

**_i’m gonna try to shower the hangover away. wish me luck. see you tomorrow!!_ **

Dan sends off his address, then locks his phone and rests the edge of it against his mouth to hide his smile. A moment later, it buzzes again. This time it’s Ralph.

**well??**

Dan glares at the dirty bowl on his nightstand, then at his phone screen.

_Fuck off._

Ralph sends back ten eggplant emojis in a row. 

“Stop that,” Dan yells, and he can hear Ralph’s laugh from all the way down the hall.

****

Dan has refolded the same throw blanket approximately six different times when Ralph finally yanks it out of his hands.

“You need to chill,” he says.

Dan glares at him and sets about straightening the sofa cushions instead. “I can’t.”

He absolutely can’t, because Charlie is supposed to be here in less than ten minutes, and Dan is shitting actual bricks. His keyboard is set up in its usual corner of the living room waiting for him, but he can’t so much as look at it, because then it will remind him that he’s about to play with someone who’s more or less a stranger, and the thought immediately sends him into a nervous spiral. He’s already sweated through two shirts and is on the brink of ruining a third. His brain has been in permanent panic mode ever since he sent that last text yesterday. What was he _thinking?_

(Answer: he was thinking about Charlie’s voice and smile and frankly embarrassing overuse of emojis).

“Dan,” Ralph says now.

“What,” Dan whines.

Ralph sighs and places the throw blanket on the opposite end of the sofa, far from Dan’s anxious, searching hands. “You don’t have to do this. You can text him right now and call it off, if you want.”

It’s not like Dan hasn’t thought about it. When Charlie messaged him at exactly 16:02 ( ** _just finished! be there in 10_** ), Dan’s first instinct was to reply with, _actually I’m sick, can we do it some other time?_ and then avoid him for the rest of forever. But Charlie’s nice, like really, genuinely nice, and his singing voice made Dan feel like he was thirteen again, on Brighton Palace Pier during summer hols with a vanilla soft serve dripping all over his hand—young and content and bursting with something unnameable, an energy without a starting force. It was a feeling he hadn’t felt in a long, long time.

A knock on the door startles Dan so hard he jumps. 

Ralph glances at him. “Do you want me to—”

“No, I—” Dan swallows hard. “I’ve got it. I’ve got this.”

He keeps chanting the words in his head, _I’vegotthisI’vegotthisI’vegotthis,_ as he walks over to the door, puts a sweaty hand on the knob, and pulls it open.

Charlie’s face lights up right away. “Hi!”

He’s got his rucksack on one shoulder and guitar case on the other, both items warring for room on his back. His chest is heaving up and down as if he power-walked to get here, and there are crumbs dusting the corner of his mouth like he scarfed down a snack on the way. He’s still so bloody cute.

“Hi,” Dan says. “Um, you’ve got a bit of—”

Charlie’s eyes widen. He brushes the back of his hand against his mouth, and when it comes away dusty, his cheeks turn a tad pink. “Ah. Sorry. I’ve been in classes all day, had to skip lunch.”

That makes Dan smile, just a little. “You’ve been carrying your guitar around since this morning?”

“Maybe?”

“We could’ve met up later, if you needed some time.”

“No! No. This is good.” Charlie shifts on his feet. “Can I come in?”

“Oh. Yeah. Of course.”

Dan steps aside to let Charlie enter the flat. It’s a small disaster of a place—the sofa’s got holes in it, and there’s a big, fluffy plant wilting away in the corner that neither Dan nor Ralph ever remembers to water. It’s _their_ disaster, though with film posters on the walls and a shelf under the telly that’s positively exploding with DVDs. 

“Cool flat,” Charlie says.

“Thanks.”

Charlie touches the corner of the Twin Peaks poster above the sofa. “My flat’s shit. Will isn’t much of a decorator.”

“Your mate? The Stormzy fan?”

Charlie turns to him and beams like he’s surprised Dan’s remembered. “Yeah, the one and only. You and Ralph live together, right?”

As if on cue, Ralph emerges from his room at that very moment. He gives both of them a wave. “Don’t mind me, I’m just heading out.”

The statement sets off alarm bells in Dan’s head. “Where are you going?”

“Over to Sarah’s for a bit.”

“Sarah?” Charlie asks.

“My girlfriend.” 

“Didn’t know you were hanging out tonight,” Dan says, glaring (subtle) daggers in Ralph’s direction.

Ralph shrugs, the epitome of innocence. “I didn’t want to bug you guys.”

 _You absolute wanker,_ Dan wants to say.

“It’s your flat. You can join us if you want,” Charlie insists.

“Nah,” Ralph waves him off. “No worries.”

“Next time, then.” Charlie holds out his pinky. “C’mon, pinky promise me.”

Ralph laughs and hooks his pinky in Charlie’s. Internally, Dan is hyperventilating. _No, this time,_ his mind begs, _this time this time please._ Whatever lesson Ralph’s trying to teach him right now—he doesn’t want to learn it. He needs his best mate here for moral support before he passes out.

But Ralph’s not a mind reader, he’s a shit head, so he bids them both farewell and heads for the door, shooting Dan a reassuring grin when Charlie’s back is turned. Dan just mouths the words _fuck you_ and watches him go _._

“So, should we do this?” Charlie asks.

Dan stuffs his shaking hands into his pockets. “Uh,” he says.

Charlie’s smile fades. “Are you freaking out?”

“A bit.”

“Okay. Well. We don’t have to. I can just play and you can give me some notes? Or I don’t have to play at all. We can watch a film. Or I can just leave, I—I don’t want you to be uncomfortable.”

Charlie rambles on, so honest and sweet, that Dan instantly feels like a prick. “No, that’s—I don’t want you to go.”

“Oh. Cool,” Charlie says. “I, um—I don’t want to go either.”

“Okay,” Dan says. He pauses and licks his lips. “Can we—will you show me that song? The one about houses.”

“‘More Stately Mansions’?” Charlie perks up and goes to open his guitar case. “Yeah. Definitely. It’s, like, the only thing I have that’s remotely close to finished”

“I liked it a lot,” Dan says. 

“It needs layers, I think,” Charlie says, taking a seat on the sofa. He’s gone into music mode, babbling away while he works on tuning his guitar. “Some drums. Maybe piano. Me and my guitar are good pals, yeah, but we get lonely, you know?”

Dan laughs. Charlie looks up at the sound and breaks into a smile. “What? It’s true!”

“I didn’t know guitars got lonely,” Dan says.

“Well, they do. Instruments need love and affection, just like people do.”

“Alright. I’ll take your word for it.”

Charlie smiles wider. “So, what do you think? I sort of want the song to build, like.”

He plays through the first couple of verses. It’s a simple song, one single strummed chord after the other. Charlie sings along, but quietly, more focused on the music than the lyrics. Dan sits down on the edge of the coffee table and watches him, enraptured.

“It kind of fools you, right? There’s this bit that sounds like a pre-chorus, but then you’re left waiting through another verse,” Charlie’s saying. He glances at Dan and stops playing. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“Something. What are you thinking?”

Dan drops his eyes to his feet. Says, “The ‘lost at sea’ line. It could build from there?”

“Show me?” Charlie asks.

Dan shuffles over to his keyboard and takes a seat behind it. He can feel Charlie’s eyes on him, and it’s unnerving, but also not, which doesn’t make any sense. Just moments ago, Dan was on the edge of a breakdown, but now that Charlie’s actually here in front of him, there’s something...comfortable about it, like he’s a jumper Dan’s put through the wash a million times. Like maybe he’s meant to be here.

“Play the chords for me again?” Dan requests.

Charlie does. Dan pokes around until he finds the right key, then starts to pluck out an accompanying line while Charlie plays. It’s nothing fancy, but it adds—something. Charlie’s smile cracks his face open like an eggshell.

“Yeah,” he says, a little breathless. “Yeah, that’s good.”

“It’s not much.”

“It’s a hundred times better already,” Charlie says, unabashed in his praise. “Keep going.”

They work on the song for an hour, maybe two. Charlie talks way too fast when he gets excited about an idea, and he’s got an unending catalog of compliments at the ready for every time Dan so much as breathes air. The attention should make Dan cringe, but it just turns him all warm and gooey, like the inside of a toasted marshmallow.

“Where did you learn how to play?” Charlie asks a bit later.

“Self-taught, mostly. My parents couldn’t afford to get me lessons.”

“Fuck off.”

Dan blinks, his cheeks going warm. “What?”

“I mean—like, how are you real?” Charlie asks.

“Um.”

“Actually, don’t answer that,” Charlie hurries to say. He bends forward over his guitar and pretends to be busy tuning a string. Dan’s eyes get stuck on the little tuft of hair that falls over his eyes when he does so. “My mouth operates like, three seconds ahead of my brain at all times, as I’m sure you’ve noticed. It’s a bit of a problem.”

“I—I don’t mind it,” Dan says.

Charlie freezes. “Oh.”

“I like you. I mean,” Dan feels like he’s tripped over a curb and fallen flat on his face. He winces. “I like talking to you? And hanging out with you.”

“You don’t sound too sure about that,” Charlie says, lifting his head. He’s smiling.

“I don’t sound sure about...well, anything. Ever.”

“Noted.” 

Dan tugs nervously at his ear. 

“I’m—” he starts. Stops. Takes a deep breath. “I’m pretty sure I’d like to do this again sometime, though, if you want?”

Charlie looks like he’s had a bomb dropped right atop his head. 

“I want,” he says. “I absolutely want.”

“Okay, great,” Dan says.

“Great,” Charlie echoes.

****

Charlie wakes up the next morning with a random melody stuck in his head. He opens up the voice memos on his phone, records himself humming, and sends it to Dan right away, because he has zero self control. 

**_what do you think of this??_ **

**_Attached: 1 Voice Memo_ **

The noise he makes when Dan immediately replies is a cross between that of a house alarm and a dolphin—altogether inhuman. 

_Sounds cool. When do you want to work on it?_

(Charlie can’t help thinking that the twenty minutes he spent on the floor of the shower the morning after Kyle and Nick’s party, puking up the lingering remnants of jello shots, were so, _so_ worth it).

They make plans to meet up tomorrow night, but then just...keep texting all throughout the day. Dan is, it seems, strongly averse to using emojis, which is unfortunate, since they also happen to be Charlie’s second language.

 _Are you going to Dick’s on Thursday?_ Dan asks him.

**_are YOU going?_ **

_I always go._

**_think you can get your barkeep friend to give me a free drink? [chair emoji]_ **

Dan’s reply takes a couple of minutes longer this time.

_Maybe. What’s a chair got to do with anything?_

**_there’s no wood emoji so that was the next best thing_ **

**_his name is woody, right? i didn’t make that up?_ **

_Lol,_ is Dan’s simple response. Charlie hopes he really did laugh out loud. He’s cute when he laughs.

“You’re being annoying,” Will tells him that night, while they’re eating pot noodles together in front of the telly.

“I’m not annoying, you’re just grumpy.”

“Who have you been texting all day?” Will asks. “The one with the big hair?”

“His name is Dan,” Charlie says, already typing out another message to let Dan know that yes, he has heard The Killers’s new song, and yes, it is fucking amazing.

“I’m moving out.”

Charlie doesn’t lift his head. “What?”

“I’ve been hooking up with your mum.”

“What?” Charlie says again, still furiously typing away.

“Oh my god,” Will groans.

Dan doesn’t look nearly as close to death this time around when Charlie shows up for their next jam session (which is a stupid phrase, but he doesn’t really know what else to call it, since ‘music-making date’ would probably send Dan running for the hills). Then Dan tells Charlie that he’s been working on something to go with the voice memo, does he want to hear it? and sits right down at his keyboard and plays the most amazing bit of piano Charlie’s ever heard.

“Dan,” Charlie says once he’s done. “ _Dan._ ”

Dan gets that happy, flustered look on his face that always pops up when Charlie compliments him. 

“You like it?”

“ _Dan,_ ” Charlie says again.

He’s got a note in his phone with some half-arsed lyrics about [ holding his breath and trying and trying until he can’t anymore ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3GOusISHlo). He shows them to Dan, and they spend the whole evening writing and re-writing verses and trying to pair them with the joint melody the two of them have created. They’re still at it when Ralph rolls in sometime after ten. He stops in the entryway and frowns.

“Shit, broke my pinky promise, didn’t I?” 

Charlie and Dan are side by side on the sofa, heads bent together over the coffee table while Dan points at a line of text on Charlie’s phone. They both look up at the same time and say, in unison, “what?”

Ralph glances between the two of them, eyebrows raised. “Never mind. Looks like you didn’t need me, anyway.”

“Ralph,” Dan objects.

“I’m kidding, I know you couldn’t function without me,” Ralph tells him. Dan sticks his tongue out like a little kid, and that makes Charlie laugh. Ralph turns to him then and asks, “will we be seeing you tomorrow night, then?”

“Wouldn’t miss your set for the world,” Charlie says, crossing himself with his right hand.

“I’m honored,” Ralph says. “Are you going to play?”

Charlie glances at Dan, doesn’t know why. Usually he’s itching to get up and play for a crowd, but this thing between them feels sacred, almost—like it’d be blasphemous to play on his own now that his songs have Dan’s fingerprints all over them. And that’s after just _three days_ of them working together. Christ, but Charlie’s in deep.

“Dunno,” is the answer he settles on. “We’ll see.”

Come Thursday night, he doesn’t play. He sits beside Dan at the bar instead and listens to him talk shit about Ralph with Woody the barman (who doesn’t give them free drinks, sadly, but is also the most sarcastic bloke Charlie’s ever met and has him guffawing every five minutes, so that sort of makes up for it). 

And Charlie swears he’s never experienced anything better than this: knocking knees and drinking watered-down pints with Dan inside a shitty pub, watching his blue eyes glimmer in the darkness, his breath warm against Charlie’s ear whenever he leans in to be heard above the music. Charlie thinks about putting a hand on his thigh, or his elbow, or his shoulder. He thinks about telling Dan how right this all feels. He thinks about fate, or something similar.

They start meeting up almost every day. Most of the time they play music, but other times they just hang out and revise for exams, or watch Twin Peaks (“I don’t get it,” Charlie says, but stays there on the sofa anyway), or share playlists with each other. Sometimes Ralph is there, sometimes he isn’t. Charlie feels a bit guilty about the whole thing, like maybe he’s stealing Dan away, but Ralph assures him that isn’t the case.

(“You’re good for him, like,” Ralph says one day, when the three of them are out on the balcony having a pint and Dan disappears inside to use the toilet. “He and I, we’ve known each other for so long. I think he’s just afraid to become someone new, someone I don’t recognize. With you, he can be whoever he wants.”

Charlie picks at the label on his bottle. “I’m just always so worried I’ll scare him off.”

“You won’t.” Ralph looks him straight in the eye. “He likes you. Don’t fuck it up, alright?”)

The only bummer is that Dan still hasn’t shown Charlie any more of his original stuff. And of course Charlie doesn’t want to pressure him, so he doesn’t say anything about it—but he does go home some nights and try to pick out the tune of that one streets song from memory, because it’s still hanging around in his brain like a pesky mosquito. He’s positive that Dan has more genius tucked away somewhere; he just has to be patient and wait for him to reveal it.

One night, about a month or so into this thing of theirs, Dan texts him out of the blue. 

_What are you doing?_

**_eating toast,_ ** Charlie replies, brushing some crumbs off his bedspread. **_what are you doing?_ **

_Sarah’s here._

Charlie stares at the text for a solid minute. Then his eyes go wide. 

**_OH_ **

**_[crying laughing emoji]_ **

**_get it ralph!!_ **

**_wanna come over?_ **

_Please._

That’s when Charlie realizes they’ve literally always hung out at Dan and Ralph’s flat, so Dan’s...never been over here before. He’s never seen Charlie’s room. He’s never even met Will. Oh god, he’s _never even met Will._

Charlie runs out to the hall. 

“Will!” he shouts.

The reply comes through Will’s closed door. _“What?”_

“Dan’s coming over,” Charlie shouts again.

No reply. A moment later, Will’s door cracks open and his head appears. “Big hair?”

“Don’t call him that to his face, I’m begging you _._ ”

Will breaks into a grin. “You’re nervous.”

“I’m shitting myself. Please, please, please don’t embarrass me.”

“Oh, you don’t need me for that. You’ll do it all on your own.”

Charlie flips him the bird and scurries back into his room to change since he’s got toast crumbs all over himself. Then he goes to the front door and stands there for the next fifteen minutes, because he’d much rather come off as a psychopath than have Will beat him to answering it.

“ _Thank you,_ ” Dan says when he arrives. “I couldn’t listen to that any longer.”

“Does that happen often?”

“They’re usually over at hers. Guess they just wanted to torture me today,” Dan shudders. “At least I had an escape route this time.”

“Don’t get too excited—you haven’t met Will yet,” Charlie tells him. 

Will emerges from his room as if summoned. 

“Hello,” he says to Dan, straight-faced.

“Hello,” Dan answers.

Will eyes him closely. After a moment of silence that even makes Charlie start to squirm, he says, “your hair isn’t that big up close.”

Dan looks a bit deer-in-the-headlights. “Um.”

Charlie wants to bang his head against the doorframe. “What did we _just_ talk about,” he says to Will.

Will ignores him. “Anyway, I’m off. Cheers, lads.”

And then, like a genie disappearing back into his lamp, he’s left the flat. 

“So that’s Will,” Charlie says.

Dan pushes a self-conscious hand through his hair. “Is my hair really that big?”

“A bit,” Charlie admits. “It’s cute, though.”

He realizes his mistake within the next second. Dan’s cheeks flash the color of a tomato, and Charlie’s heart is suddenly careening to a stop in his chest like a driver trying to avoid a road hazard. He opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again. “It’s—I mean—have you heard the new Strokes album? We should go listen to it!”

His room isn’t spotless, but it at least isn’t a total pigsty, so he’ll count that as a win. He frantically sweeps any remaining crumbs off his bed before he sits down. “I’ve only listened through it once so far,” he babbles. “It’s interesting for sure. A lot of the songs are super long—”

“Charlie,” Dan cuts in.

He’s just kind of...hovering in the doorway, eyes flitting around as he takes in the room. They dart from Charlie’s face, to the open spot on the mattress beside him, and then back to his face again. Charlie’s stomach does approximately twenty somersaults in a row.

“What’s up?” he asks.

“I, uh,” Dan starts. “I’ve been working on something. Can I show it to you?”

Charlie nearly blacks out on the spot. 

“Yeah,” he breathes. “Yeah.”

“It’s shit,” Dan warns him, taking a careful seat on the edge of the bed and pulling out his phone.

Charlie doesn’t say a thing, because he knows by now it isn’t worth it to protest. Instead, he scooches a little closer to Dan and stuffs his hands beneath his thighs to hide the way they’re shaking with excitement. Dan looks up for a moment like he’s seeking confirmation that Charlie really wants to hear this, and Charlie nods so hard he feels like a bobble-head figurine. He wants this—he does. He wishes Dan knew just how much.

The voice memo starts out as static. For a few seconds, there’s nothing, and then—[piano. A series of low notes played a couple of times over. ](https://youtu.be/YbXwWcWqE6w?t=206) Dan’s voice comes in faintly toward the end of the second set, a random adlib, right before he starts singing for real, and it’s—

Haunting. 

He’s stuck. He’s stuck and he’s fighting, fighting for something isn’t there anymore. He’s stuck and fighting and can’t get out—doesn’t want to get out. 

The song socks Charlie straight in the jaw. When the voice memo ends, he swears he tastes blood in his mouth.

Dan keeps his eyes on his lap and fidgets with the phone in his hands. “So, uh—yeah, that’s what I’ve got so far.”

Charlie stares at the side of Dan’s head, speechless. How does someone so talented, yet so humble, actually exist? How is that person sitting here, in Charlie’s room of all places, asking for his opinion? How is he even here in Charlie’s _life?_ Some universal force out there has decided that Charlie deserves this, for some reason—that he deserves Dan. He doesn’t have a clue why. He’s not worthy in the slightest.

“Dan, that was—” _amazing,_ he wants to say, but can’t seem to form the word on his tongue.

Dan finally looks over at him. Up close, his freckles are like constellations scattered across his cheeks. Charlie wants to connect the dots with his mouth—wants to kiss him so badly his whole body aches with it.

“What?” Dan asks. 

“You—” Charlie says. The tangled web of desire in his chest threatens to choke him. “You’ve got to teach me that song.”

Dan’s smile could brighten even the gloomiest of English afternoons. 

“Yeah? Alright. My keyboard’s at home, though.”

“Not right _now,_ you buffoon,” Charlie says, giving Dan a bit of a shove. “But—someday soon.”

“Alright,” Dan says again. He knocks his knee against Charlie’s where their legs are hanging side by side off the edge of the bed. “D’you still want to listen to the Strokes?”

They lie down next to one another, heads at the foot of the mattress and feet up by the headboard. Charlie hits play on his phone and sets it in between them, and they stay like that for ages, until the album has cycled all the way through and Spotify has switched to playing a bunch of random songs it thinks they might like. Charlie closes his eyes and listens to Dan breathe beside him. This moment—it’s a good one. Charlie would stay inside of it forever if he could.

****

Despite the voice in his head screaming that it’s a terrible idea and that Charlie secretly hates his songs and doesn’t want learn them at all, Dan teaches him “Fake It” (along with “These Streets,” after Charlie absolutely insists on it—

“That song about streets—it was the moment my life changed forever.”

“That’s the cheesiest thing I’ve ever heard,” Dan says, blushing hard enough that it feels like someone’s held a lit match up to his face.)

With Charlie around, everything is just...less. Less frightening, less intense, less panic-inducing. Pulling the words from his brain, putting them to music, and then singing them _out loud—_ it’s all a bit more manageable with Charlie’s encouraging grin shining at Dan from the sofa.

(“That was so good,” Charlie says every time, whether it’s Dan singing a line a certain way or playing a new chord on the piano or even just uttering the word ‘hello’. The praise makes Dan’s heart sing and his teeth ache like he’s eaten a full stick of candy floss.)

Ralph wanders into the living room a few days into them working on the harmonies for “Fake It.”

“What’s this one, then?” he asks.

“Dan just came up with it the other day. Isn’t it sick?” Charlie says.

Ralph’s knowing gaze pins Dan down like a thumbtack on a corkboard. 

“Didn’t know you’d written something new.”

Dan shrinks down on his stool. “It’s—”

“‘—shit,’” Charlie finishes for him, putting air quotes around the word with his fingers.

Ralph laughs so hard he has to plant one hand on the wall to keep himself upright. 

“Look out, Dan,” he says, wiping the tears from his eyes. “I’ve got my own ally now.”

Charlie grins and holds out his hand for a fist bump, which Ralph reciprocates. 

“No, no, no,” Dan says. “You aren’t allowed to gang up on me. That’s not fair.”

“It was only a matter of time. I mean, look, Charlie’s practically our third flatmate at this point.”

Charlie is indignant. “Will’s a dickhead. And you guys have got a balcony.”

It’s true, though. Dan spends more time with Charlie than he does by himself these days. They don’t even make plans most of the time; Charlie will just randomly be waiting outside his and Ralph’s block of flats, or Dan will show up at the music building after he knows Charlie’s lectures are finished for the day. Ralph’s taken to calling Charlie _the other woman,_ which makes Dan throw the nearest object at him every time (a pillow; a crumpled piece of notebook paper; and on one particularly memorable occasion, the spliff he’d been rolling).

“So when’s your debut?” Ralph asks him one night after Charlie’s gone home.

The two of them are in the kitchen heating up frozen pizza as an eleven o’clock snack. Dan hops up to sit on the counter and says, “Uh, never? We’re just...having a bit of fun.”

“If by ‘having a bit of fun’ you mean ‘churning out songs that put even Ralph Pelleymounter to shame,’ then sure, alright.”

“Ralph, c’mon.”

“You sound good together. Really good,” Ralph tells him seriously. “You know I wouldn’t say that if I didn’t mean it.”

“Yeah.”

“I think you should let the rest of the world see what I get to see. I think they’d like it. A lot.”

Dan sighs and looks down, knocking his feet idly against the cupboard. “I just—I don’t know.”

“I’m gonna keep bugging you until you do what I say.”

That makes Dan smile. “Wouldn’t expect anything less.”

True to his word, Ralph keeps asking. And asking. And soon, other people are asking, too. Dan’s in line at Costa with Sophie one morning when she says, “so you’ve been hanging out with that bloke from the party?”

Dan looks over at her, surprised. “You remember him?”

“I accidentally kneed him in the dick, Dan, of course I remember.” Sophie waves him off. “Ralph said you’ve been playing together.”

“Ralph’s got a big mouth.”

“So it’s true, then? How’s that going?”

“Good. It’s—Charlie—he’s good.”

“Charlie,” Sophie echoes. She breaks into a big smile and wiggles her eyebrows. “And what else is he good at?”

Dan groans. “ _Nothing,_ Soph.”

She hums, unconvinced, but thankfully moves on. “All I’m saying is I better get a VIP invite to your first show. I’m talking soundcheck access, meet and greet, front row spot, the whole thing.”

“ _If_ we ever play a show, you know you’ll be the first person on the guest list after Ralph,” Dan assures her.

The more questions he gets about it, though, the less of an _if_ and more of a _when_ it becomes. He can’t believe he’s actually bloody considering it. A few months ago, he couldn’t look Charlie in the eye. He had to take three shots of tequila before Ralph could convince him to even sit down on the makeshift stage at Dick’s. Now he’s writing songs with the _sole purpose_ of showing them to Charlie. He’s actively thinking about the two of them performing in front of a living, breathing crowd of other human beings. It’s absolutely insane. He barely recognizes himself anymore.

(But—maybe that isn’t such a bad thing.)

Charlie calls him on Saturday afternoon. “Want to come with me to watch the footie match at Kyle and Nick’s?” 

“I don’t know shit about football,” Dan says.

“Neither do I, but they always buy loads of snacks for these things. It’s basically a free meal.”

Dan hesitates. “I don’t want to impose.”

“They won’t mind! And besides, you’ve already been to their flat.”

It’s obvious Charlie wants him to come—and Dan’s fast learning that saying ‘no’ to Charlie isn’t something he has in his skillset. “Alright.”

They meet up halfway between their flats and head over to Kyle and Nick’s together. Charlie is wearing an Arsenal jersey that he swears he didn’t buy for himself (“my dad is still holding out hope that I’ll become some sort of blokey bloke, like—has he not heard me sing?”). It’s far too big for him, hanging off his shoulders in a way that makes it look like he’s playing dress-up. He’s adorable. Dan wants to hug him, and also maybe do some other stuff—stuff that he probably shouldn’t put into conscious thought.

Turns out Kyle remembers Dan from the party. Nick doesn’t, but he does say, “you’re Charlie’s new bandmate, right?”

“We’re not a band,” Charlie and Dan say at the same time.

“Oh. Well, Kyle and I are,” Nick says.

“Tyde,” Kyle says proudly. “We remix stuff.”

“They’re shit,” Charlie tells Dan. “And not _your_ definition of the word. Like, actual shit.”

“Yeah,” Nick agrees. “But we have fun, at least.”

There are about twenty people in the flat, give or take. Charlie doesn’t seem to know anyone besides Kyle or Nick, (which is a relief—not that Dan’ll ever admit it), so the two of them raid the snack table and grab a couple of drinks before finding a spot in front of the telly. 

All Dan knows about football is that the players kick a ball around while the crowd yells a lot. Charlie doesn’t seem to be faring much better than him, knowledge-wise, but he still looks pleased as punch as he stuffs his face full of crisps.

“You really did want to come for the food,” Dan realizes.

“I told you,” Charlie says around his mouthful. “It’s a free meal.”

But overall, it isn’t that bad of a time. Kyle and Nick are nice lads, and nobody bothers Dan about the fact that he always shouts at the telly a half-second too late. By the time the game is over and everyone else has gone on their merry way, he’s even talking to Kyle one-on-one about how _1989_ is the superior Taylor Swift album.

“You’re completely disrespecting _Red_ and I won’t stand for it,” Charlie interrupts, plopping down right in between them on the sofa. “‘All Too Well’ is an underrated lyrical masterpiece.”

Kyle leans forward so he can look past Charlie and meet Dan’s gaze. “Are his songs as depressing as his taste?” 

“Not as depressing as mine,” Dan offers.

He realizes his mistake a split second too late, when Kyle claps his hands together and says, “Okay, wait, now you’ve got to play us something.”

“Oh,” Dan says, his stomach plummeting to his feet. “Uh—”

He looks over at Charlie, a wide-eyed plea for rescue.

“We haven’t got our instruments,” Charlie blurts. 

“You can use my synth. Piano, right?” Kyle asks, pointing at Dan.

“I, um—yeah,” Dan says weakly.

“Kyle—” Charlie starts.

“C’mon, lads, live a little,” Kyle exclaims, already leaping up from the sofa to (presumably) fetch his aforementioned synth.

“We’re the least judging audience there ever was,” says Nick. “I mean, look at us.”

“It’s not that,” Charlie says.

“Then what is it?”

“It’s—” Charlie cuts his eyes toward Dan again, then away, so quickly that he almost misses it. “We haven’t, like, formally rehearsed anything. Just done a bit of messing around.”

Charlie picks at the too-long hem of his jersey, and that’s when Dan has a most obvious realization—Charlie isn’t saying these things for himself. He’s saying them for Dan. Because he _knows_ Dan—knows how he gets about his music and sharing it with people, knows what a small miracle their collaboration has been, knows that Dan has handed over his friendship so readily these past few months only because he trusts Charlie not to make a mess of it. 

And what, exactly, has Dan done for Charlie? Showed him a few songs? Played some notes on the piano? Given him a place to hang out when Will’s been in a particularly tetchy mood?

The scales of their friendship are all out of whack, and that imbalance suddenly weighs heavy on Dan’s chest. 

“We could show them a bit of ‘Fake It,’” he offers.

Charlie’s head snaps up so fast, Dan’s worried it might go flying right off his neck. 

“We—what?”

“It’s just got piano, anyway. Should be easy enough,” Dan continues, as if this is a totally normal conversation they’ve had a million times before.

“You want to play something?”

‘Want’ is a strong word. “They’ve asked so nicely,” Dan says.

“Dan.” Charlie’s eyes are big and full of wonder, like he’s seeing the sun for the first time after an endless winter. “Are you sure?”

He absolutely isn’t, but he takes the instrument Kyle holds out to him anyway. It’s a mini synthesizer, one with only 25 keys, and it fits perfectly on his lap. He hits a few keys experimentally and tries not to let the sound of them shake his newfound courage.

“Ready?” he asks Charlie, and without waiting for an answer, he starts to play.

They sing through the end of the first chorus. It’s only about a minute total, but it’s the longest minute of Dan’s life. He keeps his eyes on the keys and only looks up when Charlie’s voice comes in for the first round of harmonies. Charlie is already looking back. When their eyes meet, he grins, wider and happier than Dan’s ever seen, slightly crooked teeth on full display, and Dan just—melts a bit inside. His heart expands like a hot air balloon, and he finds himself singing the last few lines with a spark of confidence that wasn’t there before.

When it’s over, the room is eerily quiet for a long moment. Then Kyle opens his mouth and says, with vehemence, “What the fuck, you guys. What the fuck.”

“That was—yeah,” Nick echoes.

“I don’t know what that means,” Charlie says.

“That was brilliant _,_ ” Kyle elaborates helpfully. “The lyrics—who wrote them?”

“Those were all Dan,” Charlie says, a hint of pride in his voice. He kicks his foot out to nudge Dan’s, and Dan jolts a little at the contact, something warm settling in his stomach. 

“They’re nothing special,” he says, a reflex. “But, ah—thanks.”

He’s crossed some invisible line in the sand, a demarcation separating the old Dan from this one. And it feels...good. Terrifying. But good. When they walk out of Kyle and Nick’s flat a bit later, he feels like he’s walking over a threshold into the unknown—the mythic hero setting off on his journey toward a revelation. A transformation.

They’re both quiet for most of the walk home. Dusk has settled over campus like a blanket, the sidewalks empty in that way only Sunday evenings seem to be. Charlie’s feet scuff audibly against the pavement with every step. 

“You didn’t have to do that,” he says, out of the blue.

“...I wanted to,” Dan says.

Charlie glances sideways at him, his face soft in the purple light. “Really?”

“Yeah. I mean, I was still fucking terrified, but—” Dan shoves his hands into his pockets, his heart climbing upwards into his throat. “We’re good together, aren’t we?”

Charlie smiles, sweet and easy, and ducks his head. “I think so, yeah.”

The moment ripples around them like an ocean current, pushing and pulling Dan’s emotions every which way. He could so easily reach for Charlie’s hand and hold it in his own, feel the guitar calluses on his fingertips and the ridges of his knuckles. He wonders how they would fit together—if their physical limbs would match up like their minds have, precisely and perfectly.

“We need a name,” he says instead.

“Thought we weren’t a band.”

“That was a couple of hours ago. Come on, mate, keep up.”

Charlie laughs. “Right. My bad. Well, actually, I have been thinking—”

“And?”

“What about ‘Two Evils?’”

“...we aren’t very evil, though.”

“Nah. It’s ironic! And there are two of us.”

Dan thinks on it for a minute. “I don’t hate it.”

“So is that a yes?”

“I guess so. Yeah.”

Charlie does a little hop-skip down the sidewalk and throws his arms into the air, cheering like he’s in the midst of a crowd at a concert. 

“Good evening, world!” he then shouts. “I’m Charlie, that’s Dan, and we are Two Evils!”

More muffled cheering. 

“You’re a weirdo,” Dan tells him.

Charlie grins. “Thank you, thank you. I try.”

****

They’ve hit their stride and it’s _magical._

The songs they’ve been working on are coming together in a way that Charlie never could have predicted. Sure, they’ve always sounded good together—really, really good—but now they’re so in sync with one another, it’s like they share the same brain. Every note they hit and line they sing feels indescribably right. 

Dan also comes up with songs like he’s a magician dragging a rabbit from a hat, the ideas appearing out of thin air. He [ names one after their band ](https://youtu.be/YbXwWcWqE6w?t=680) (Charlie still can’t believe he can say those words— _their band,_ they’re a band, how wild is that), and then comes to Charlie a day later with another that’s all about searching for meaning in a meaningless world. Charlie sits on the sofa while Dan plays the demo for him and just stares, slack-jawed.

“That’s the best thing you’ve written so far,” Charlie tells him, once he’s regathered his wits about him.

“You think so?”

“I _know_ so. It’s the one, Dan. The One.”

Dan pokes around on his keyboard for a moment, playing a string of random notes. He looks like he’s deep in thought, head bowed and brow furrowed. Charlie waits.

“What if we performed it? Like, at open mic?” Dan says.

Charlie does a double-take. 

“Hang on—did the words _perform_ and _open mic_ really just come out of your mouth?”

Dan goes a bit pink in the cheeks, but doesn’t back down. “I’ve been thinking a lot lately—too much, I reckon—”

“Well, yeah, you always do,” Charlie says. Dan rolls his eyes.

“—and I think I want to do it? It might be fun. And it’d get everyone to shut up about hearing us play.” 

Charlie’s mouth can’t seem to form the words that his brain so desperately wants to say: _I’ll do anything you want. Anything at all._

“You aren’t saying this because you think it’s what I want to hear, right?” he asks instead.

“Pretty sure I’m not,” Dan says.

“Okay, good, because I’m obviously going to say yes, and I don’t want to feel bad about it later.”

Dan smiles, a hesitant little thing that makes Charlie’s heart sing. 

“I’m not saying I won’t still throw up when we get onstage.”

“I’ll bring a barf bag,” Charlie promises.

They decide to give themselves a couple of weeks, enough time to practice the song to death, but not so long that Dan will end up chickening out. Then they go about the painstaking process of sharing their plans with everyone, which is...interesting, to say the least.

“Trying to upstage me, huh?” Ralph says. 

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Charlie says.

“We’re more of...a warm-up. The opening act,” Dan says.

Ralph looks between the two of them, shaking his head. “You guys have no idea how good you really are, do you?”

Charlie texts Kyle and Nick to let them know, and Kyle replies as predicted, with a bunch of exclamation points and heart-eye emojis. Nick waits an hour, then says, _I guess I’ll clear my calendar._

Will complains, in his typical Will fashion.

“Y’know, when I suggested we go to Dick’s the first time, I didn’t think you’d go crazy and become obsessed with the place,” he says. “But then again, it’s not the place you’re obsessed with, is it?”

Charlie flushes. “Are you gonna come or what?”

“Of course I’m coming. Gotta see if Dan’s voice lives up to the hype.”

“You called him Dan,” Charlie says in wonder.

“Did I?” Will shrugs. “Alright then.”

They practice the song until they know it forwards and backwards, until they could perform it with their feet tied and their eyes closed, until Dan stops saying “fucked up that bit, didn’t I?” over and over again. It’s a good song—no, a great song. Fucking brilliant. And Charlie can’t wait to get Dan onstage and make him see that. He can’t wait to watch Dan watch all of their friends’ faces and (hopefully) realize, “hey, maybe I am really as talented as all of these people keep saying.” 

This performance—it’s going to be the start of something big. Charlie can feel it in his bones.

“How are you feeling?” he asks Dan.

It’s Wednesday, the night before open mic. Ralph forced them to stop playing twenty minutes ago (“Save some of it for tomorrow, please, for the love of god”), so now they’re out on the balcony, seated close together in the flimsy plastic chairs Dan and Ralph apparently found on clearance at Poundland back when they were first years. 

(“You bought lawn chairs while you still lived in the residence halls?”

“Never know when you might need a good lawn chair—and look at us now!” said Ralph.)

It’s a relatively warm evening. There’s a light breeze that ruffles Dan’s birdnest of hair; Charlie wants to reach over and pat it back down into place, but he doesn’t.

“Fine,” Dan says. “Will I sleep tonight? Probably not. But other than that, fine.”

“What if I sing you a lullaby?”

Dan laughs. “Is that a serious offer?”

“Anything for you,” Charlie says.

It comes out more serious than he intends it to. He clears his throat and looks away, out over the rows and rows of sloping roofs. 

“What would you sing for me?” Dan asks after a moment. “‘More Stately Mansions?’”

Charlie feels Dan’s gaze heavy against the side of his face. He swallows hard. “Is that your pick?””

“It’s the song that changed my life forever, innit?”

The words are nearly the exact same ones Charlie spoke a few weeks ago. They stir up his insides, awakening all of the feelings he’s been trying to hold dormant for so long now. Dan just...does something to him, something wonderful and scary and inexplicable. He’s some sort of natural disaster without a name, sweeping into Charlie’s life and upending it completely, but in the best way possible. Charlie looks back at his life before Dan—before his soft smile, his quiet companionship, his _music—_ and in retrospect, it doesn’t look like much of a life at all.

“You’re gonna smash it tomorrow,” he tells Dan. “Don’t worry.”

Dan grins at him, and Charlie is going to remember that smile for as long as he lives, open and honest and warm as a summer’s day. 

“ _We’re_ gonna smash it,” Dan says.

Hearing him say the words makes Charlie believe them even more.

****

Like some kind of all-knowing ninja, Woody already has three pints waiting on the bartop when they walk into Dick’s on Thursday night.

“On the house,” he greets. “To celebrate the special occasion!”

“Cheers,” Ralph says.

“How’d you know?” Charlie asks.

Dan picks up one of the drinks and presses the cool glass against his forehead. “I think I’m gonna pass out,” he says.

It’s not a lie. He’s feeling awful woozy, heart thump-thumping in his ears. And he swears it’s even stuffier in here than usual, the air reeking of cigarette smoke and sweat and clogging his throat . There aren’t many people hanging around yet, but it’s still early; open mic doesn’t begin for another hour. Dan’s not totally sure he’s going to live to see it, at this rate.

A warm hand settles on his shoulder. “Hey, don’t pass out,” Charlie tells him.

Dan snorts and wipes the condensation from his brow. “Solid advice, thanks. I’ll do my best.”

Charlie grins and rubs his fingers against the fabric of Dan’s shirt for a moment, a comforting gesture. Then his hand is gone, reaching over to the bar to pick up his own pint glass. Dan tries not to stare at him and fails spectacularly. 

It’s just—Charlie looks _good_ tonight. Really good. He’s a bit dressed up, like he was the first time Dan ever saw him, in a button-down shirt covered in little stars and pressed grey trousers. He’s got his guitar case on his back, and he looks so small beneath it. Dan has the most absurd urge to offer to carry it for him, like some sort of twentieth century gentleman courting his beloved.

“Ralph warned me he’d have some competition tonight,” Woody says. “And to that I say: it’s about time. His head is stupid big.”

“Oi,” Ralph protests, but he’s smiling. “I’m the pride and joy of this place.”

“My point stands.”

Dan takes a sip of his pint and tries to ignore the fact that his heart is currently doing parkour inside of his chest. Yeah, this may have all been his idea, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t sick to the gills about it. He hopes Charlie brought that barf bag.

“So this is your big debut, isn’t it?” Woody gestures between Charlie and Dan.

“Performing live in front of a crowd for the first time ever: Two Evils!” Charlie announces.

“Cute name.”

“It isn’t cute, it’s badass,” Charlie protests. 

He looks so put-out, face pinched like a little kid. Dan can’t help but laugh. “It is a bit...unoriginal.”

“You said you didn’t hate it.”

“I love it,” Dan assures him. 

Charlie shoots him a small, pleased smile. Beside them, Ralph makes a gagging noise and mimes sticking his finger in his mouth. “Christ, you two are going to kill me.”

Dan’s face goes hot. He reaches over and flicks Ralph on the ear, to which Ralph replies by pinching his forearm. Charlie edges his way in between them and says, “now, now, children, we’re in public.”

“Woody’s seen worse,” Ralph says, but leaves Dan be. 

Dan flips him the bird for good measure.

They muck around at the bar for awhile as people trickle into the pub. Kyle and Nick show up, and so does Sophie, and Ralph’s girlfriend Sarah, and even Charlie’s flatmate Will, who looks at everyone and everything around him in utter disdain, but stays anyway. Charlie gives him a big hug, which only makes his expression sour further. (If Dan had to bet money on it, he’d reckon Will’s actually a teddy bear somewhere deep, deep down inside.)

Ralph’s up first. He’s put together a neat [ cover of a Lana Del Rey song, ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NETBQvpNXpk) one Dan’s heard him practicing through the walls for the past couple of weeks. It’s good—but then again, Ralph always sounds good. He cracks jokes with the crowd and makes the stage his own, as usual. Dan tries to be a supportive mate and pay attention and clap extra loud when it’s over, but it’s a bit difficult when there’s currently a swarm of butterflies inside of him begging to be let out.

His dread must be written plain across his face, because everyone suddenly scrambles to reassure him.

“You’ve got this,” says Sophie.

“Pretend you’re only playing for us,” Kyle tells him, gesturing at the group of them.

“Least judging audience of all time, remember?” says Nick.

“Good luck,” says Will, sounding bored to absolute tears.

Dan pushes a nervous hand through his hair, then instantly regrets it. “Oh, god, do I look like I’ve been electrocuted now?”

“You look great,” Charlie says quietly, just for him. He reaches up and brushes down a few strands of Dan’s hair with his fingers, and Dan almost stops breathing. “You’re gonna be great.”

“Charlie—”

“Listen to me.” 

Charlie puts both hands on his shoulders. It’s a bit awkward since he’s a good few inches shorter, but Dan doesn’t say anything. He looks at Charlie’s face, smiling and vulnerable as ever, and feels something inside of him settle, like a key sliding into a lock.

“The song is amazing. We’re going to play it, and everyone’s going to love it,” Charlie says. “And if you throw up, then at least we’ll have a good story to tell afterwards.”

 _I believe you. God help me, I believe you,_ Dan thinks.

“Okay. Okay,” Dan says.

Charlie gives his shoulders a squeeze. “Right, here we go.”

From onstage, Dick’s looks like a whole other universe. Dan was far too drunk the first time around to really process anything, but now he can take it in properly, and it’s—sort of a miracle, the way the room seems to transform right in front of his eyes. All of the little details that make the place such a dive—the sticky floors, the ripped leather bar stools, the cracks in the walls—none of them are visible from up here. 

Instead, Dan sees the glow of the cheap Christmas lights that live in the windows year-round. He sees the _EVERYBODY DESERVES ANOTHER SHOT_ sign that’s been hung over the door to the toilets for as long as he can remember. He sees Woody behind the bar, balancing four glasses in his hands like a pro. He sees people laughing around tables with their mates and playing darts in the corner. He sees Ralph and Sarah and Sophie and Kyle and Nick and Will, his people. They’ve made it to the front of the crowd and are standing right at the foot of the stage, all giving him a big thumbs-up.

Dan sees it all. He sees it and thinks, _this. This is what home feels like._

Charlie pulls his guitar strap over his head and glances Dan’s way. Their eyes meet, and he smiles the most beautiful smile Dan’s ever seen. It makes Dan feel—

Invincible.

“Hi,” he says into his mic, and his voice doesn’t waver. “I’m Dan, and that’s Charlie.”

“Together, we’re Two Evils,” Charlie says.

“This is an original song. We, uh, hope you like it.”

[ And then they play. ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekN7GNfYE7w)

Dan on the piano. Charlie on the guitar. Dan begins to sing, and Charlie’s voice joins in, their harmonies ringing through the pub, clear and strong and full of feeling. They nail every note, every word. Dan’s hands don’t shake. His stomach doesn’t twist up into knots. He’s never felt braver as he looks straight at Charlie and sings, “ _and then you put your hand in mine / and pulled me back from things divine_.” 

And Charlie looks back—he’s always looking back—“ _stop looking up for heaven / waiting to be buried.”_

Dan doesn’t want the moment to end.

But it does. The song fades to a close, and then the pub bursts into noise and movement. Clapping. A loud _woop_ from Woody behind the bar. Kyle wolf-whistles. Sophie cheers. Will’s even smiling a little. And Ralph’s just standing there, beaming with pride, like he’s known this whole time just what Dan was capable of (and it’s true—he has known, hasn’t he? He’s known it better than anyone).

Dan feels like he’s riding an ocean wave as they climb down from the stage. His heart is going a million miles per minute and his brain is fuzzy from the adrenaline. 

“That was—”

“Fucking amazing,” Charlie finishes for him.

“Yeah,” Dan breathes.

They stand there, frozen to the spot. Dan’s face hurts from smiling, but he can’t stop. Charlie looks just as foolish, his forehead glistening with sweat and eyes shining with something Dan can’t quite place. Pride. Happiness. Fondness, maybe? The seconds tick by in time with his pounding heart, one after the other, until—

Charlie kisses him.

It happens so fast Dan almost thinks he’s dreamt it. One moment, Charlie’s standing across from him; the next his lips are on Dan’s, soft and just the slightest bit chapped. It’s nothing, in the grand scheme of things—a peck, if that—but it sends Dan’s brain into a tizzy. He doesn’t know what to do with his face or his feet or his hands. He just stands there like a dunce, and then it’s over, Charlie rocking back on his heels and looking at Dan with wild eyes, his expression stricken.

“What—” _just happened,_ Dan means to say, closely followed by _and can we maybe try it again so I don’t freeze up like an idiot this time?_

He doesn’t get the chance. Their friends materialize out of nowhere, surrounding them with loud chatter and claps on the back. Ralph drags Dan into the fiercest of hugs, and Dan has no choice but to go along with it, his eyes stuck like glue on Charlie all the while.

“I’m so proud of you,” Ralph says, squeezing the breath out of him. “Knew you could do it. I _knew_ it.”

Dan tries to smile, but everything is stilted, the world moving in slow motion. Beyond Ralph’s shoulder, Charlie’s been dragged into a playful group hug with Kyle and Nick. Kyle’s mouth is moving, and Charlie’s looking up at him, eyes wide and glassy like he isn’t retaining a word. He seems as stunned as Dan feels, like he didn’t know what was going to happen until he actually did it, and that isn’t right, is it?

 _I want a do-over,_ Dan thinks. _Come back over here, please, come back—_

_Let’s get it right this time, we can’t leave it like this—_

_You make my life better, you make_ **_me_ ** _better, I can’t—not without you—_

“Time for drinks,” Sophie declares, grabbing onto his arm. 

She pulls him towards the bar, Ralph and Sarah following suit, and Dan is a man out of time. He looks back over his shoulder. Charlie is there, he’s right there behind them, Kyle and Nick towing him along while Will sulks beside them, but he isn’t looking at Dan—won’t look at him. It’s like they’ve ended before they’ve even really begun.

****

**_dan_ **

**_i’m sorry_ **

**_actually i’m not sorry, but i know that doesn’t make it okay_ **

**_i hope i haven’t ruined things between us_ **

**_please don’t hate me. Please_ **

A hundred texts that Charlie types but doesn’t send. Delete, delete, delete, over and over, until his thumbs are sore and he can taste his shattered heart in his mouth.

**_i thought maybe you felt it too. did you?_ **

He doesn’t know what came over him. Maybe it was the adrenaline, or the music pulsing through his soul, or how ethereal Dan looked behind his keyboard, bathed in the lousy spotlight with his hair flopping into his face. Maybe it was all of it, the weeks and months of learning the songs, of learning each other. Maybe his heart finally got fed up with him and said _enough,_ popped the bubble of denial he’d been living in and went, _look at him, really look at him. What do you feel?_

Everything. Charlie felt everything.

Meeting Dan was a coincidence. Will dragging Charlie to Dick’s that night, Ralph being in the same Music Theory lecture as him—that’s how life worked. Happy accidents, random connections, they happened all the time. 

But getting to know Dan—listening to him talk his way through a challenging bit of a song, watching him roughhouse with Ralph, seeing his face light up from the tiniest amount of praise—that was on purpose. Nothing in Charlie’s life has ever been more intentional than the endless hours spent at Dan’s side carefully prying him open, like a fisherman cracking open an oyster with the hope that a pearl will be waiting for him inside.

Now, it’s like all of those hours were for nothing. Charlie went and fucked everything up, smashed the oyster shell between his bare hands and threw it on the ground. He doesn’t know how to put the broken pieces back together. Doesn’t know if it’s even possible to do so.

He doesn’t leave his bed all day. It’s the first time in ages that he’s gone an entire day without seeing or talking to Dan, and it’s horrible, feels almost sacrilegious. He misses him like a lung, 

Will walks in on him that night as he’s wallowing in his misery and plucking aimlessly at his guitar.

“Charlie,” he says.

“What?”

Will sits down next to him on the edge of the bed. He looks distinctly uncomfortable and out-of-place, as if he’s been asked to perform a surgery, or do something equally impossible.

“Look,” Will says. “I’m about to have a real conversation with you, but don’t get too comfortable, because after this, it’s never happening again.”

Charlie sets his guitar off to the side and says, “alright.”

Will nods, satisfied. “So, what happened?”

“I kissed Dan.”

He keeps reliving it: Dan’s smile. The faint tang of alcohol on his lips. The surprise in his eyes when Charlie pulled away. 

“When?”

“Last night. After we got offstage.”

“Alright. And?”

“And what? I mucked it all up, Will,” Charlie says. “Everything was going so well. We played the song, and it was brilliant, and all of you were there to watch, and then I just—jumped on him without even thinking about the consequences. You should’ve seen his face.”

Will’s expression is inscrutable. “Did he say anything?” 

“No. Probably because I scared him shitless.”

“Did _you_ say anything?”

“No. There was no time. You all showed up, and I just—”

Will punches him in the arm. Charlie yelps. 

“Fuck, that actually hurt! What’d I do?”

“Nothing, you idiot. That’s the problem.” 

Charlie rubs his arm and glares at him. “You didn’t have to hit me.”

“I had to knock some sense into you somehow,” Will says. “Now, listen carefully, because this is some solid advice I’m about to give you: you need to talk to Dan.”

“What if he hates me?”

“He doesn’t hate you.” Will shakes his head. “You guys just—fit. It’s freaky, mate. Should’ve seen yourselves onstage yesterday.”

He stands up and points to where Charlie’s phone sits on his nightstand.

“Talk to him. And don’t come looking for me until you do.”

With that, he takes his leave, and Charlie’s left sitting there with a lump in his throat. He’s absolutely loath to admit it, but—maybe Will is right. He and Dan fit. They always have. In a bizarre, honestly terrifying way. And Charlie apparently isn’t the only one who sees that—which means that maybe, just maybe, Dan might see it too. Has Charlie just been a coward? Could it really be that simple?

He types out a message to Dan with trembling hands. 

**_hi are you busy?_ **

Dan takes a few minutes to reply, long enough that Charlie has just started to contemplate suffocating himself with his pillow.

_It’s nearly midnight...so no._

Charlie releases a long breath.

**_i think we should talk. can i come over?_ **

_Sure._

It’s not a particularly enthusiastic reply, but it also isn’t a flat-out rejection, which is a good sign. Charlie throws on his shoes and all but runs out the door with Will shouting a pointed “good luck!” after him.

He’s out of breath by the time he gets to Dan and Ralph’s flat. He’s also realized that he’s still wearing his pyjamas, which consist of a hideous pair of checkered pants and a t-shirt that has the words “Hedgehogs: Why Don’t They Just Share The Hedge?” written across it. It’s too late to back down now, though, so he knocks on the door and waits, trying to ignore the way his heart is running round in circles inside his chest.

A few seconds later, Dan appears in the doorway.

“Hey,” he says, voice hesitant.

“Hi,” Charlie says.

Dan’s eyes flit from his face, to his shirt, and then back again. His mouth twitches into a half-smile. “I like the hedgehogs.”

“Thanks.” Charlie’s face goes warm. “Can I come in?”

Dan opens the door wider and leads him into the living room. It’s been less than forty-eight hours since Charlie was here last, but those forty-eight hours feel like a lifetime. A tidal wave of relief washes over him when he sees Dan’s keyboard in the corner and the Twin Peaks poster on the wall. It’s like he’s back where he belongs.

“Ralph’s not in?” he asks, just for something to say.

“He’s at Sarah’s.”

“Ah.”

They take a seat on the sofa. Dan rubs his palms against his thighs and looks everywhere but at Charlie’s face, and that’s—yeah, alright, Charlie deserves that. Doesn’t mean he can’t look at Dan, though, at how soft he is in his joggers and pink jumper with his glasses slipping down his nose. He’s the most cuddleable thing Charlie’s ever seen.

“About last night,” Charlie starts.

“It’s—”

“I—”

They speak at the same time. Dan looks over and they share a sheepish smile.

“Sorry,” Dan says. “You came all the way here. You go first.”

“Okay,” Charlie says. He takes a deep breath. “Okay. I’m sorry.”

“What for?”

“For kissing you,” Charlie says.

Dan’s whole face shutters closed like a storefront at dusk. Charlie watches him shut down, watches the light go out from his eyes and the tightness return to his mouth, and knows he’s made a mistake. 

“You’re sorry,” Dan echoes. 

“Wait, not—that came out wrong,” Charlie blurts. “What I meant is—I’m sorry for kissing you like that. For catching you off guard. For not making sure you were okay with it first.”

Dan’s brow remains furrowed. “I don’t—I’m not following.”

“Sorry. Let me start over.” Charlie takes a deep breath. “Yesterday was like—the best day of my life. You were amazing up there. _We_ were amazing. You felt it too, right? Or am I crazy?”

Dan blinks at him, his expression unreadable. Then, a moment later: “you’re not crazy.”

The world bursts apart right in front of Charlie’s eyes. Someone’s tied a bunch of helium-filled balloons to his wrists and he’s floating up, up, up, high above the wreckage, watching the debris dance through the air in specks of green and blue and gold. That’s how Dan makes him feel: like he’s flying, like he’s untouchable, like it could just be the two of them together and nothing else would never matter ever again.

“I like you,” he tells Dan. “I like you so much.”

A faint smile appears on Dan’s face, and it’s—a flower reaching full bloom. A rollercoaster car reaching the top of an incline. The greatest gift Charlie’s ever received. 

“So you did want to kiss me,” Dan says.

 _More than anything._ “Yeah,” Charlie says. “Yeah.”

Dan reaches across the space between them, his fingers grazing the inside of Charlie’s wrist.

“Kiss me again. And let’s not be sorry about it this time,” he says.

He doesn’t have to ask Charlie twice.

Charlie leans over and presses his mouth to Dan’s, and it’s everything it _should_ be, every possible cliché one can think of: sparks. Fireworks. Dan kisses carefully at first, like he’s worried Charlie might suddenly disappear—but then his tongue is in Charlie’s mouth, hands hot on his waist, and Charlie swears he can feel Dan’s freckles against his face, all hundred-something tiny specks of them seeping through his skin. He climbs right into Dan’s lap and thinks about staying there forever, about letting Dan snog him senseless here on the sofa until they both forget the words to all of their songs.

“Oh, come _on—_ the sofa? Seriously?” 

They break apart. Charlie goes tumbling off Dan’s lap, face-first into the sofa cushions. Dan bursts out laughing. It takes Charlie a moment to corral his limbs into some semblance of order and drag his face out of the armrest, but when he does, he finds Ralph standing in the doorway, looking down at the two of them with a big frown on his face. Charlie’s legs are still thrown over Dan’s, and Dan puts a hand on his thigh without a second thought. It makes Charlie want to kiss him again and again and again.

“You were supposed to be at Sarah’s,” Dan says through his laughter.

“So you use that as an excuse to swap spit with each other on _my_ sofa? Classy, Dan. Very classy.”

Charlie curls into Dan’s side and smothers a smile against his shoulder. 

“Sorry,” Dan tells Ralph, unapologetic.

Ralph just shakes his head. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad you two finally got your shit together. But if you think this means you can be all disgustingly cute in front of me—”

“We would never,” Charlie says, and then Dan betrays the words by leaning over to kiss him on the side of the head.

“Jesus. I’m going back to Sarah’s,” Ralph says. “Text me in the morning when it’s safe to come home.”

“Bye!” Dan calls after him.

The door slams shut with far more force than necessary, rattling the walls throughout the flat. Dan turns to look at Charlie and they both start cracking up all over again.

“I feel sort of bad,” Charlie says, hiccuping out another laugh.

“I don’t,” Dan says. 

He does some awkward wrangling of their bodies until he’s on top of Charlie, the two of them lying horizontal on the sofa. He leans up to press a kiss to Charlie’s smiling mouth, then folds his arms flat against Charlie’s chest and rests his chin on the backs of his hands. Charlie reaches out and smooths back some of the unruly hair behind his ear, just because he can.

“So, what’s next for Two Evils?” Dan asks him.

“Whatever you want,” says Charlie. “I was thinking a few more open mics. Or a lot more, depending. And maybe you and I going on some dates in between?”

“That sounds good,” Dan says. “I’ve never been on a proper date.”

Charlie stares at him. “What? _How?_ How is that possible?”

Dan’s cheeks get a bit red. “Dunno. I’m a bit weird, aren’t I? Who’d want to date me?”

“ _I_ would,” Charlie says adamantly. “I’m going to date you so hard.”

“Oh. Okay,” Dan says, and Charlie grabs onto his face with both hands and pulls him up so he can reach his mouth again.

(“Y’know, I’ve got this idea for a song,” Dan says a bit later, when most of their clothes have been flung into various corners of his bedroom and they’re curled up together like two question marks on the mattress.

Charlie groans. He reaches over and pinches Dan’s bare nipple, and Dan’s whole body jerks. 

“All work and no play, honestly, Dan—”

“It’s about you.”

“Oh.” Charlie gets a pleasant, squirmy sort of feeling in his chest. “Well in that case, carry on, then. What are you thinking?”)


End file.
